So, as I cryptically alluded to a few weeks ago, I wrote a book: Cold Lessons. I used a pen name: Michael McCulloch.

Like any first-time author, I eagerly awaited the reviews, hoping they would be glowing, or at least not too brutally specific about my shortcomings as a writer. Unlike a lot of first-time authors, I have a pretty good vantage point in the book-reviewing biz, and I know how hard it is to get reviewed at all. Most first-time authors don’t receive any serious review attention, especially if they have a small book contract with a modest print run (and therefore don’t have a team of publicity people working on their behalf). Even though I’m a book reviewer — maybe especially because I’m a book reviewer — I don’t have any extra clout that will help me get my own book reviewed.

(Booklist did a nice profile, but, of course, can’t run review a book by one of its own. And, if I had written under my own name, there’s a school of thought that says rival publications — well, let’s just say there’s a school of thought. And because I didn’t write under my own name, who the heck knows who Michael McCulloch is?)

As a book reviewer, I have another unique quandary — if someone writes a bad review of my book, I’m kind of obligated to take it to heart. I mean, given the care that I put into my own reviews, I would be depressed if they were shrugged off with a simple, “He’s only a book reviewer, what does he know?” I’m invested in the concept of book reviewing, and it would be hypocritical for me to shrug it off.

(Unless, of course, the negative review was written by someone who obviously didn’t know what he was talking about.)

So, at any rate, my book went on sale in late January without having been reviewed by any of the other three pre-publication review journals: Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal. Disappointing, sure, but not unexpected. I still held out hope for a review in my local newspapers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times, or maybe in one of the niche mystery publications that’s on my publisher’s mailing list.

(I’ll save the story of the eBayed galley for another day.)

Given that most general-audience reviews are timed to the book’s on-sale date, as early February threatened to turn into mid-February, I began to think that Cold Lessons would join the ranks of the unreviewed. My only review to date was by the indefatigable citizen reviewer Harriet Klausner. And while she diligently posted the review around the Web, let’s face it, a professional review carries more weight.

But then my hometown weekly, the Missoula Independent, informed me that they were running a review. It appeared online yesterday (”Lessons Learned,” by Joe Campana). Local paper or no, I started reading with the same kind of nervous anticipation that I am sure is felt by debut authors reading Booklist notices. After all, I’ve sat in judgment many times, but this was the first time my own work would be judged.

Actually, I kind of scanned the review, my eye jumping down the page, trying to make sure there wasn’t anything painful before I committed to reading it carefully. It looked really good. Some of the phrases that jumped out at me:

…you need talent, which McCulloch seems to have in abundance.

In a genre where imitation comes cheap and easy, McCulloch has written his very own book…

…an uncanny sense of humor.

I was starting to relax — in fact, I was starting to feel mildly euphoric. But still, I was waiting for the but.

(One of my favorite lines of movie dialogue ever comes from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure:)

PEE-WEE
Simone, this is your dream. You have to follow it.
  
SIMONE                  
I know you’re right, but…

PEE-WEE                  
But what?

SIMONE                  
Everyone I know has a big “but.”

PEE-WEE                  
Come on, Simone. Let’s talk about your big “but.”

But I got to the summation without seeing any big buts:

Though he’s just a rookie, McCulloch is a surprisingly restrained and un-intrusive writer. He doesn’t hit the gas pedal too hard, the plot never lurches forward but gradually eases into gear and picks up speed in all the right places. What you get in addition to a first-rate thriller is a character sketch of a nearly hopeless man stuck in a lonely town during its dreariest season. Having Missoula reflected back to us this way may not be cause for good cheer. But this town has given rise to another talented writer. And that’s worth celebrating.

Campana also invokes, in positive ways, James Crumley, David Lynch, James Welch, George Saunders, and The Simpsons. As I wrote in the Cold Lessons blog:

That would make for a pretty weird cocktail party, but it’s awfully good company.

The only problem I have with this review is that Campana didn’t write it for the New York Times Book Review. But with insight like his, I have no doubt he’s on his way.

Seriously, who knows if Cold Lessons will get more reviews. And if it gets more reviews, who knows if they’ll be positive. (And, honestly, it would be a better blog topic if it had been a negative review.) But today I’m batting 1.000, and it’s a great feeling. Hell, if I only get one review in my life, I couldn’t ask for a kinder, more thoughtful — and accurate, let me just say that — review.

From Galleycat (”From Arrest to Book Deal: 48 Hours“):

Be careful what you wish for. That’s the line in my head after an early morning conversation with a friend musing about whether someone would be snapping up fallen NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak to a book deal for her recent 1000-mile trek to attempt kidnapping and murder upon her perceived rival for a fellow astronaut’s affections. “Wanna bet the story will end up as a St. Martin’s paperback with Jane Dystel doing the deal?” I quipped. “Charlie Spicer is prepping the deal memo as we speak,” was the instant reply.

And lo, that’s exactly what happened, according to a deal just posted on Publishers Marketplace this afternoon. Dystel’s the agent, Spicer’s the editor, and the author will be Diane Fanning, whose previous true crime efforts have garnered her an Edgar Award nomination. It goes without saying the book sold on proposal - or maybe a one-page sheet, if that…

Okay, sure, that seems fast today — but I predict that, in the future, agents will be writing speculative proposals based on meltdowns that haven’t happened yet. Just as newspapers keep obituaries of famous folks on hand even before they’re dead, ambitious assistants will anticipate scandals based on high-risk personalities — conveniently, many of these people are already famous — outlining ahead of time the disastrous event for which they’re acquiring the rights.

(This leaves room for anyone who feels they got left out of O.J.’s last book deal.)

If you want to get to the front of the line and make the deal, you don’t want to waste valuable time composing one or two whole pages — or even waiting for the event to occur. You want to get the signature on the dotted line.

So, in the future, fast will mean getting the deal done before O.J.’s next arrest — and having the book on shelves the same day the story hits the headlines.

At first I was going to write something snarky about this Publishers Weekly news item (”AP Drops Reviews“), maybe headline it something like, “Because who wrote it is really more important than what they wrote” — a reference to the Associated Press’s claim that they’ll replace actual book reviews with book-related coverage in the Arts and Entertainment department.

Then I read the second paragraph:

A brief survey of book review editors by PW Daily found that few were even aware of the AP’s review offerings. All said that when they found it necessary to run a review from a syndicate, they tended to favor reviews made available from the New York Times or the Washington Post.

That’s one way to stop people from not reading your reviews.

A signing to promote Alex Rodriguez’s picture book (illustrated by Frank Morrison), Out of the Ballpark (2007), wasn’t exactly a home run, according to Michael Morrissey of the New York Post (”A-Rod Troubles Are Open Book“):

Alex Rodriguez’s appearance at a signing for his children’s book was mishandled by his publicist and bookstore staff members, turning the ballyhooed event into a media circus that included a paparazzi member tossing A-Rod a ball to sign. At one point, a New York policeman grabbed a reporter for the crime of trying to interview the beleaguered superstar.

Part of the problem was that the reporters covering the event seemed to see it mostly as an opportunity to ask A-Rod about his future as a Yankee. Who could have imagined that? I’m shocked — shocked — that no one wanted to ask him questions more appropriate for a children’s author, such as, “Where do you get your ideas?”

Eleven-year-old Michael Dowling, a prodigy with an IQ of 170, has just delivered his third fantasy novel, the last in a trilogy, to his publisher. (Dowling writes with his mother, Diane Purkiss, under the pseudonym Tobias Druitt). The first book, Corydon & the Island of Monsters (2006), was called “a treat for readers who enjoy viewing old stories from new vantage points” by Booklist reviewer Krista Hutley.

Zoe Williams’ interview with Dowling in the Guardian (“I dislike the term gifted”) doesn’t even touch on his writing, but it’s fascinating anyway. It seems entirely possible that Dowling will prove an exception to the seeming rule that all prodigies are off-balance psychologically. Then again, he could have a midlife crisis at 18. I hope not–he seems like a great kid.

“You don’t choose your friends for IQ either, they might be funny or have amusing conversation or you might like them for other reasons. I’ve been particularly lucky in that several friends of mine are almost as intelligent as me.”

At USA Today (”Publishing juggernaut Patterson keeps rolling along“), Bob Minzesheimer profiles James Patterson, who must consume prodigious quantities of wood pulp and ink in order to produce such a large pile of books. He has six coming out this year alone.

Actually, Patterson gets a lot of help from other writers. The article profiles his relationship with Michael Ledwidge, whom he met when Ledwidge was a doorman looking for writing advice. Patterson helped Ledwidge get three of his own novels published, but coauthorship helped Ledwidge leave his day job behind.

For an aspiring writer, doing the heavy lifting for a name-brand like Patterson might seem like a real-life version of Indecent Proposal, but Ledwidge says he agreed “at about the speed of light.” Maybe his own manuscripts weren’t quite as attractive as Demi Moore.

To belabor the movie metaphors, using the talent and energy of younger, hungrier writers to prop up your aging corpus suggests something a little, well, darker.

It’s a difficult business, criticizing financially successful authors. It’s easy for them to brush it off as sniping from envious scribes. But Patterson’s defense of his work — “James Patterson is bringing people into bookstores, that’s not a bad thing” — is tired. Bic Macs bring people into McDonald’s, so I guess we could say that burgers are raising the sales of side salads.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a hamburger once in a while. But a hamburger made to order at a local restaurant is bound to be more satisfying than one that’s trucked in from a warehouse in the middle of the country.

Patterson’s success is not dispiriting simply because he’s successful, or because his books are formulaic. It’s dispiriting because it strikes me as being about almost everything but a love of books and reading. Clearly Patterson’s popular enough that he could follow the John Grisham model — a book a year — and still keep his two mansions gleaming with filigree. Why, then, the need to dominate the market? Greed? Ego? Obsessive-compulsive disorder? A high-school girlfriend who told him he’d never be successful?

Nope, it’s all for the kids:

In 2005, he began his own charity, the PageTurner Awards, and donated $100,000 to schools, libraries, community groups and others who “promote the excitement of books.” Next month, he’ll announce winners of another $500,000 in awards, saying, “I wanted to find and reward people who spread the joy of reading.”

That’s why he says he began his Maximum Ride series for teens: “Give them a story they like, and you can turn them on to reading. Make them read something like Crime and Punishment, and you can turn them off. They can move on to other books later, but first, you’ve got to turn them on to reading.”

(Okay, I’ll admit that it’s untoward to criticize a charitable donation that promotes reading, but here goes: given that Patterson earned roughly $28 million last year, even $600,000 is roughly 2% of one year’s salary.)

Even so, it would be one thing if he thought of himself as a financial philanthropist. I’m reminded of something he told Booklist’s Books for Youth Editor Stephanie Zvirin a while back (”Story behind the Story: James Patterson’s Maximum Ride“:

What brought Patterson, who still writes with a pad and pencil, to YA books, and to fantasy/sf in particular? Calling himself “a man with a mission,” he says, “There’s a crisis in this country to get kids reading. There’s not enough today to compete with screens.”

Yes, you read that right: “There’s not enough” good books to do the job. He may fill bookstores with product, but has he visited a bookstore — or a library — recently? (For that matter, is he aware of lists like Best Books for Young Adults?)

This inflated self-regard would be funny if it weren’t so depressing. Well, it’s still funny, but it’s still depressing. Children’s Books Editor Ilene Cooper wrote about another hubristic rationalization in “It’s Not as Easy as It Looks, Part 2“:

In a 2003 article in the U.K paper The Guardian, Madonna informed an interviewer that she was virtually compelled to write children’s books because everything out there was so shallow. Now that she has her own children to read to, she “couldn’t believe how vapid and vacant and empty all the stories were.” Poor Madonna. She must have gotten lost in the celebrity-book aisle.

I fear that this will sound like so much more whining, but when a mega-author like Patterson floods the market with product, I just can’t help but feel that it squeezes out better works. He claims that he’s, in effect, providing a starter kit to get people hooked on reading better stuff — but if he is indeed giving them a taste for more reading, he’s also providing enough stuff to satiate many reluctant readers. According to an NEA study (”Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America“), respondents who read any books at all read, on average, six books per year. Strangely, that’s the number of James Patterson titles that will be published in 2007. Coincidence — or master plan?

And really, does Maximum Ride lead kids to Crime and Punishment? It doesn’t have to — not everyone needs to read Crime and Punishment — but I’m guessing that it doesn’t even lead them to The Great Gatsby.

Fortunately, we have English teachers to do that.

J. K. Rowling’s seventh–and final–Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, has been slated for release at 12:01 a.m. on July 21, 2007.

The number of Amazon.com preorders generated by the announcement caused the giant Web retailer to shudder, shriek, smoke, and collapse in a heap of melted plastic, frayed wires, and charred circuit boards.

Actually, the sound was probably more like a one-armed bandit paying out a jackpot.

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Bad books by celebrities are favorite targets of people who write for a living. We attack them with both humor and outrage, excoriating them because: a) they are bad, and some of us are even paid to judge between good and bad books, and, b) they reek of hubris. I’m good at acting/singing/lawyering/investment banking/tacking lucrative appropriations for my home district onto budgeting bills, the authors seem to be saying–surely I can do something as simple as writing a book.

This grates for two reasons: 1) writing anything well takes diligence, intelligence, and craft, and, 2) writing rarely pays well, so having well-heeled competitors marking the turf makes writers fear for their dinners.

(I’m not sure if it’s good writing to mix lettered and numbered lists in subsequent paragraphs, but I’m sure my point is clear.)

Still, bad books by celebrities are much more certain than taxes and, when they rise above mediocrity to achieve true badness, can actually be worth celebrating. I’m partial to the bad-novels-by-politicians genre, something I’ve written about for Time Out Chicago. Bill Ott created a very entertaining quiz about political novelists in his November 15, 2005 Back Page.

And in “Read in the Face” (Radar), Claire Zulkey serves up a thick and slightly stinky bouillabaisse of books that the famous authors wish we’d all forget about. She discusses and excerpts some old favorites, like Lynne Cheney’s Sisters and Scooter Libby’s The Apprentice, but she also discusses some lesser-known gems. Did you know, for instance, that Dan Brown wrote, under the pseudonym Danielle Brown, a book called 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman? I did not. Or that Susan Orlean, under the pseudonym Patricia Sistrom, co-wrote The Skinny: What Every Skinny Woman Knows about Dieting and Won’t Tell You!?

(Charlie Kaufman, if you’re reading–yeah, right–this sounds like an excellent jumping-off point for a sequel to Adaptation.)

Any bad books by famous people you’d like to share?