Blogging in the City

JAN BROGAN: Here at Jungle Red, we promote writers.  Ourselves. Other mystery authors. Friends. Friends of friends. Anyone we just happen to think is interesting. I'm pushing the envelope a little today. I'm promoting my son.  

You've heard me hear talk /write about him as Spike, which is what we've called him since birth, but he writes under his actual given name, Frank Santo.

Spike/Frank lives in Brooklyn and blogs about the literary world  for PageViews, which is a new initiative by the New York Daily News. The blog, which I actually read even when my son isn't posting, isn't what you think of when you think of the New York Daily News.  Less Daily News, more New York. It's sophisticated, edgy, witty, and controversial as it covers everything from the publishing world's latest phenom to Sunday's episode about Madmen ( and exactly which serial murderer were they all talking about anyway.)

Editor Alexander Nazaryan started the blog in December with the goal of being the "best source for cultural and literary reporting on the web," and while he says it's not there yet, the blog has been getting a lot of attention.  Frank (I'm having a really hard time calling him that) started there in February, and I'm not just bragging when I say he's had great success in only two months. (okay, maybe I am bragging just a little.)

What do I mean by success? Two weeks ago, he found himself quoted in People Magazine.  His blog about literary speed dating was tweeted across the universe and got picked up by the Paris Review.  His review of Fifty Shades of Gray made its way to Jezebel before it hit People.  And last week, a post he did about the Rolling Stone expose on Dartmouth hazing went viral and got more than one thousand Facebook recommends. (the counter stops when you hit 1K)

So please welcome Frank Santo to Jungle Red.

JAN BROGAN: Tell us about Page Views:  

FRANK SANTO: I’m not really sure what the overall concept of the blog is other than that I hope it is a place that fosters intelligent discussion about culture and has its own unique voice.The key to its success is probably consistency, we have at least three posts a day, and its becoming a daily destination for people interested in the literary world (whatever that is).

JAN:  Your editor puts says the concept is to have a blog about book and culture that was both sophisticated and could laugh at itself.  And I'd say you definitely laugh at yourself when you explain in your  review of Fifty Shades of Gray by E.L. James, just how excruciatingly uncomfortable it was to be reading that book as a young male on a crowded New York subway.  But the review was also interesting because it was the male perspective of a book about female fantasy.  How difficult was it to write that review and how shocked were you to find it quoted in People Magazine? 

FRANK: Well it wasn’t as difficult to review that book as it was to read it. It was hard coming up with a way to review the book that would be more interesting than “this book is really tedious, don’t read it.” So pretty much the only unique angle I could take was to write it from a male perspective. I was pretty shocked to see my name in People Magazine. I think it was because I said 50 Shades was pornography. 

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/03/its-all-porn-to-me-one-mans-review-of-50-shades-of-grey


JAN: His review was kinder than his answer would indicate, but let's say I'm still not going out to buy the book.  Back to the interview, what did you learn about your experience going undercover at a literary speed dating event?

FRANK: I learned that literary speed dating is goofy in a fun way. Everyone there was in it for the story, which was kind of nice. I think people liked it because it would have been easy for me to make fun of all of those speed-daters, but instead I kind of connected with them. They were just people seeking out a good time, like most of us.Waiting-for-a-stranger-to-roll-her-eyes-my-adventures-in-literary-speed-dating

JAN: As a Dartmouth alumni,  you took issue with Janet Rietman's expose in Rolling Stone, but not in support of fraternity life. I was really proud because you stuck up for all the students at Dartmouth trying to make it a better place, but tell us about how you approached your rebuttal piece and the reaction it's had.

FRANK: I just think Rietman relied on a false characterization of Dartmouth students in order to drum up populist outrage.  Hazing and fraternities are unneccesarry, but they aren’t the result of some kind of elitist conspiracy.  It happens at plenty of non-elite schools, so her whole 1 percent  vs 99 percent  angle was contrived. I don’t put a lot of stock in the positive reaction my post received  because it was mostly Dartmouth people who liked it, and they’re obviously going to be biased. But it was nice to have people say it meant a lot to them though.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/confessions-of-an-actual-dartmouth-student-rolling-stone-vomits-all-over-ivy-leagu

JAN: One of the best things about the Pageviews blog are the creative story ideas. Short pieces about what we happen to be wondering about at the exact moment we are wondering. Where do the assignments come from?



FRANK:  My editor is the one who comes up with most of the assignments. He has a great feel for what kind of things will get picked up by bigger websites and re-broadcast across the Internet. I'm just trying to learn as much as I can, see where the assignments take me. It's been a lot of fun so far.

JAN: What has been your favorite blog assignment so far?


FRANK: Probably the post I wrote about an art and music program for the kids at the Homeless Shelter, where I volunteer one night a week. I had the most invested in that story because I knew all the kids I was writing about and the organization I was profiling means a lot to me,That's not the kind of post that goes viral, but it gave me a lot of satisfaction.

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/03/art-start-showcases-talent-of-at-risk-youths

JAN: Frank/Spike has a day job and no access to the computer until after 4 pm, but he'll check in then to answer any questions you might have.


In the meantime, if you want to find out which Springfield they really meant when they wrote the Simpsons, check out: 

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/pageviews/2012/04/springfield

And come back tomorrow, when I have Jodi R. R. Smith, author of The Etiquette Book, give us tips on how to network at mystery or any other convention.

Starry, Starry Fright

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It's enough to drive you crazy. Admit it, it is.

You know you shouldn't read those Amzaon reviews, except, you know , the good ones are SO good, and it's reassuring and heartwarming to see someone you don't even know have such good taste in talking about your book.

So of course, you read 'em.

Then one day, the little number by your book cover says "40" when the day before it said "39." So you know there's a new review.

And, WAAAIT a minit. Your lovely solid five * thing is now edging closer to 4 *. Huh?

My worst, so far, and I'm so sorry if this is someone reading this blog but whatever, was when one review of one of my books said that the bad guy just showed up in last chapter, and no one had heard of him in the rest of the book. That 's just--gasp, it still makes my stomach clench--not true! I mean, its not true in any way, and the bag guy is there front and center from the beginning. So the person could not COULD NOT have read the book. So WHY put up something like that? Don't get me started.

Too late.

Anyway, the good news is I get to introduce you to Catriona McPherson, who is hilarious, brilliant (truly) and a force of nature (pronounce her first name like the force of nature that hit New Orleans). Her new book is...well, hilarious, brilliant and a force of nature. More on that below. (And if you want to win a free one, keep reading. )

Today Catriona offers a new, kind of glass-half-full way of looking at reviews. You'll never read them the same way again. And that (like Catriona) is a good thing.

One starrrrrrrrr, shining in the darkneeeeeeeesssssss . . .

by Catriona McPherson

I know this song. It’s an emetically emotional power ballad. It’s made for So You Think You’ve Got Talent, You Deluded Schmuck. But I can’t remember the title, can’t find it by googling the lyric, so can’t give you a link to a YouTube video. Be grateful.

And besides, I’m not actually blogging about bad songs. I’m blogging about bad reviews. Amazon one stars, you see. This little fella: * Wouldn’t Amazon and the One Stars be a great name for a writers’ rock band? Almost as good as Four Hungry Children for a country and western outfit. (I can’t sing or play an instrument, but I can think up band names all day.)

At Bouchercon 2011 in St Louis this year, Colin Cotteril and I got re-acqauainted after meeting once years ago and bonded over the joys and challenges of *, the topic of the panel Colin dreamed up and moderated, to the entertainment of all.

The joy is straightforward enough. Fiction writers are interested in character and the writer of a * usually reveals a lot more about themselves than about the book they’re reviewing.
The challenge is to chart a path from the universe of the special individual who wrote it back to the world where the rest of us live. Endless fun for Colin Cotteril, for me and maybe for you too.


Okay, first off: let’s not talk about * for books that deserve no more. In any merit system, the best books belong at one end and the worst at the other. No one can dispute that. And *s that start with “I’ve been waiting five weeks and my book hasn’t arrived” are just too sad to contemplate for long. Also, only a churl would take a pop at those poor, beleaguered high-school students being made to write reviews of books their teachers chose. Reading a book is one thing; doing a book isn’t.

No, I want to talk to you about the others; the delicious, moon-howlingly mad *, the *that makes you glad this reviewer doesn’t have a small country to run, the * that makes you hope this reviewer has a curfew or even an ankle-band.

There are some simple algorithms to deal with the most common egregious *s.

1: * from anyone who doesnt know how to use apostrophe’s = three stars.

2: * from anyone who thinks “loser” has two “o”s = four stars

3: * from anyone who thinks “boring” has five “o”s = five stars

And so, just as you can convince yourself that you have a diet so healthy that you make Michael Pollan look like Homer Simpson – because food you eat in the car, in other people’s houses, or standing up in front of the fridge doesn’t count – you can convince yourself that you have never actually had a legitimate *. Or I can anyway.

If you read enough of these things, you start to see other patterns too, more subtle patterns, but they’re there.

There are the Petulant Huffs. They can be paraphrased as: “I ordered a unit of stock from this writer and it was not exactly what I was expecting. This is an outrage. Get back to your computer and read my mind with a bit more attention next time, you provider of inadequate service, you!”

I get that a tube of Pringles should be a tube of Pringles and if you crack one open to find the best peanut brittle of your life you might still be miffed. But novels aren’t extruded product. A * Petulant Huff is a four star to me.

Another favourite type are the Cynical Drawls. They go like this: “McPherson (for instance) is copying a better writer/ Grafton had a deadline looming and phoned it in/Evanovich is tired of the series and can’t be bothered any more/Rowling has made her millions and couldn’t care less now. “

I’ve never met a writer who wasn’t in it up to her (or his) neck, deeply involved with her characters, acutely aware that every time you publish a novel you’re cracking open your ribcage, pinning back the flesh of your chest and letting the world see, and judge, your beating heart.
So a * Cynical Drawl is a four star from where I’m looking.

And then there are the one-offs. The randomly hilarious reviews. They light up my day so brightly, I’d rather have them with their bonkers * than a saner five-star any day.

Especially delectable is when you hit a patch of them around one innocent little book. The world’s more fun for knowing that someone reviewed How to Make an American Quilt and complained, apparently without irony, that it seemed fragmented. “Fragmented.” “Quilt.” She read over her review, saw these two words close together in the same sentence and . . . nope, nothing.

And when I went looking for this review again (it’s an old favourite) I found another * of the same book that was even better. And I quote:

“This Book is horrible! If you're thinking of buying it, don't. There's hardly anything in it about Finn, the main character.Plus it has instructions on how to make a quilt! How stupid is that! If I wanted to know how to make a quilt I would buy a book about quilting, not a book about a movie.”

“ A book about a movie.” I’m happy to be alive.

Now, for budding * fans, a couple of pointers about how to find the juicy ones.

Stephen King is one of my favourite writers. His fan-base has, at its far opposite edges, Group A. devotees of his earlier, horribler novels (I think of these readers (unfairly) as Comic Book Guy) who loathe his later, messier stuff and Group B. readers who love his characters and his towns and his big, warm heart and think he’s getting better and better (and kind of wish he’d do one without any BOO!, just to see what happens).

So Comic Book Guy is giving King a lot of * these days. Here’s a good one of Lisey’s Story, with a smidge of Petulant Huff and a pinch of Cynical Drawl too.

“As a trucker I rent a lot of books and generally grab up any Stephen King reads because his books really help me chew up the miles on long hauls. Like others have said...I too couldn't finish it. In fact after renting it for around $12 (Unabridged) I turned it back in after only getting part way through disk 4 of about a 12 disk set. . . . Some like romance novels, but when I pick up Stephen King I expect to be entertained. This book up to disk 4 was just a rambling mush fest. This has such a strong female flavor of romance to it that I can't help wonder if it wasn't Stephen King's wife who wrote it, and they slapped his name on it for marketing.”

I can’t remember how many times I’ve written a book and given to my husband to put out under his name, can you? Well, it’s the wifely thing to do.
Or you can go straight to the top.

Pride and Prejudice has 55 *s on Amazon.com as I write. Half of them are complaining about the price, the quality of the CDs, the kindle edit or, in one case, the paper quality. And some of them are from poor high school kids being tortured by their teachers. But others are gems indeed.

Take this one:

“I am so disappointed. Being a fan of classic literature I was looking forward to reading Pride & Prejudice. But what I got was moderately-well written chick lit. Think of Pride and Prejudice as the Bridgit Jones of the 18th Century.”

And while you’re at it, think of Romeo and Juliet as the West-Side Story of Renaissance Verona.

Think of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde as the Nutty Professor of Victorian London. Think of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as the older brother of The Young Frankenstein, and pause to wonder why she wrote a book about a movie.

HANK: Ah, I can't type. I am still laughing. Let's just say..we'll give a copy of Catriona's new book to one lucky commenter--and come on, who doesn't want to comment about reviews?

Catriona McPherson is a recovering academic and the author of six novels set in Scotland in the 1920s, featuring the gently-born but nevertheless pretty kick-ass private detective, Dandy Gilver. (Hank says: It's kind of Upstairs, Downstairs meets Nora Charles.)

St Martin's Press have just launched the series in the US with The Proper Treatment of Bloodstains. A year ago, Catriona left a ramshackle farm in a beautiful valley in southern Scotland, and now lives on a ramshackle farm in a beautiful valley in northern California. Cantaloupe instead of rutabaga - otherwise business as usual.

Check out my website https://webmail.whdh.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=a865385c47014701bcdaa604685d895a&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.dandygilver.com.%2f.
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In fact, good luck trying to avoid me.