With the exception of this brief excerpt, I haven’t read any of Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times, the debut work of cultural criticism by Assistant Professor in Sociology at McMaster University, Phillipa K. Chong. It might be good, it might be bad, I really don’t know. What I do know is that Inside the Critics’ Circle is a university press title by a young academic of color about the internal politics of book reviewing, with an initial print run of 1,000 copies. Hardly catnip for crucifiers.

Why then, I wonder, has the UK’s paper of record decided to publish a mean-spirited 700 word evisceration of it? What is the point in publishing this gleefully condescending, oddly personal take-down by septuagenarian Australian literary critic Peter Conrad? For whose benefit or entertainment was this green-lit?

I’m all for brutal honesty and sentence-level artistry in book reviewing, truly I am (at Book Marks we round up the Most Scathing Book Reviews of the Year every holiday season and it is a goddamn delight), but I am also deeply suspicious of any critic who regularly takes one of the following two approaches to their craft:

(i) Punching Way Down: If you think of your devastating hit-piece as a necessary corrective to a thus-far uninterrupted literary love-in or a wake up call to the fans of some over-garlanded charlatan, then fine. By all means dunk on the millionaire or Booker winner. As a general rule, though, unless a young author has threaded something truly insidious or idiotic through their small press debut or short story collection, you can maintain your integrity by pointing out the faults without being a dick about it.

(ii) Prioritizing your verbose snark over the task at hand: We get it, you’re a magnificent wordsmith who could write circles around the authors whose dreck has been bought for seven figures. You’re also a critic, and you have a job to do; if there’s more bile in your review than intelligible information, you’re doing it wrong. Chances are you’re also showing your ass.

This pointless, unpleasant piece of criticism does both.

Dan Sheehan

Dan Sheehan

Dan Sheehan is the author of the novel Restless Souls (Ig Publishing) and Editor-in-Chief of Book Marks.