The Art of the Review Part II: What Does It Mean to Review Responsibly?

 

In my post on Monday, I laid out how a pathologizing reviewer can miss the mark. I was prompted to write that post because of a pathologizing review written about my book, Gay Faulkner. The larger problem with that review needed to be addressed, but the publication of that review has also given me an opportunity to lay out the framework for what I think should be the role/goal of reviewing. I plan to use this blog to write reviews of my own. I'd like my reviews to be positive; I'd like that they not pathologize their subjects. Thus, I want my reviews to be "good." But what makes a good, which is to say responsible, review?

 Good and bad might not be the right terms here. There are good reviews and bad reviews. There are positive reviews and negative reviews. But to hell with all that. I want to approach reviews differently. I think there are pathologizing reviews and responsible reviews. This dichotomy most clearly structures the art of review, at least as far as I can see it. This post is intended to frame a mode of reviewing that is responsible for the subjectivity of its assertions—and, as such, is responsive to the subjectivity of the text.

 A review is never objective. Objectivity is privilege, and claiming objectivity is just a cover for applying pre-conceived ideas as truth to assert one's prejudices. A responsible reviewer accepts that their response to a text is fundamentally subjective, which does not mean a review should just be the performance of pure, unfettered opinion. No, to be responsible is to acknowledge one's subjective response and then work to understand where that response meets the subject of the work under review.

 My interest in articulating this approach to reviewing does not grow solely from the one pathologizing review published so far about my book. I've been chewing on this idea since around February as I've wondered if—or when—my book would be reviewed at all. Over the past few months, my internal monologue has turned into serious questions about why it hasn't been reviewed. Even in a world of pandemic, it feels like my book has just disappeared.

 So far, there are five reviews of my book, including two on Amazon, or at least five that I'm aware of since its publication on December 30, 2019. I did read the two reader reports for the manuscript (way back in the Fall of 2018), which serve as a kind of review, but I am not including those in these five. The first review (post-publication) came out in January in the Clarion-Ledger. A slightly longer version of the same review appeared on a personal blog page for the reviewer, but I think it is fair to consider this "one" review, just published in two media. The review was generous and positive. It did note that some readers would think I was reaching a bit in my analyses of Faulkner's work, but the reviewer immediately offered that the words and the meanings I derive from them are there for any reader to see—thus, what appears to be "reaching" is actually just clearer sight. I take that as a compliment.

 There was a key difference in the review as it appeared in the newspaper versus online. The newspaper version concluded with the statement that my book was important because it "pierced the hidebound conventions surrounding Faulkner," which is to say my work does something important to revise our understanding of an established (and guarded) member of the canon. Obviously, I found this statement deeply flattering. Online, this concluding statement was replaced by a still-positive statement about the value of the book, but one with less punch to it. Nonetheless, both versions made me feel quite good about what I'd done.

 Of course, this review did start on a note that I've been wondering about—whether this is a good or bad thing because it's not really pertinent to my goals. The reviewer told his personal story about questioning, when he was in school, if Faulkner's works had some homosexual elements to them. He implied that reading my book led him to recall his frustrations about the non-answer that often greets students when they press this point in a classroom, especially a high-school classroom. One key portion of my argument is that I re-frame the faulty answers that have greeted this question, but it is a bit off from my intention to say that my goal was just to revise the high school curriculum. The reviewer literally began his response to my book by framing it as a long-awaited response to his old high-school teacher, which does, admittedly, mirror many informal responses I've receive to the book. I am the antidote to those snooty high school teachers plaguing students with denial. Cool, but from my perspective, the value in exploring Gay Faulkner is not just to answer curious questions in a literature classroom but to assess a bigger epistemology and offer ways to see a world that such a limited epistemology occludes. I'm glad I'm giving high school students some ammo, but I had higher aims for my upward punch.

 Okay, I'm being a little shitty. The review was positive, and it was good. If your goal is to pierce hidebound conventions, maybe it takes a while to get over the hump of folks just saying how long they've wanted any answer beyond denial in response to so obvious and simple an inquiry as whether or not a major American author with an enormous oeuvre might have even a tinge of knowledge of sexual otherness. We must clear that proverbial huddle before the deeper implications can fully find space to land.

 Or, stated more laconically, it matters that a first response is "see, I told you so!" Such a response probably explains the emails I got from a high school teacher in California in February asking me if I'd help him answer a question from one of his students about Joe Christmas in Light in August. Said teacher had seen my book title, so when one of his students asked if it is possible JC is a closeted homosexual, the teacher looked me up and asked me to weigh in. I ended up exchanging a handful of emails with this teacher, because one of my actual goals in life is to get random emails from other teachers asking me for insight into things I've written about. This is not review, it is flattery, but whatever. I'm gonna take it and bask in its light.

 The two reviews on Amazon, posted in August, are very kind. Both give me five-stars! However, one of these reviews, even with five-stars, does admit to a flaw in the book, or at least spotted a tension in it. The reviewer mentions that I use the words "perform" and "self-perform" extensively, suggesting that these concepts are significant to my argument. But I never define them clearly. I say them as if readers will just naturally have context for what they mean.

 One of the reader-responses to the original manuscript actually praised the extent to which I did not bog down my writing with heavy theory and complex terms, which is not to say my work isn't informed by such things. I just don't spend time showing off about it. So, from this perspective, a virtue of my book is its accessibility and clarity.

 On the other hand, this approach does, at times, skip over the kinds of advanced critical conversations necessary for scholarly writing. Queer Theory can be an obnoxiously onerous rhetorical shitshow of fancy jargon, and many would-be Queer Theorists revel in their ability to say nothing but say it so complexly that no one notices that they've said nothing at all. Others recognize that language is the problem with articulating "queer" desire and identity, so they purposely write towards opacity to deconstruct the very notions of stability they are writing against. To this latter group belongs Judith Butler, whose theories about performative identities undergird my work, but I don't quote much Butler. Her writing is distinctly (famously) opaque, and I wanted my book more accessible. Thus, I use her ideas, but I don't explain them—this is a legit problem with the book.

 Still, said reviewer who questioned my lack of defining "perform" admitted that my motives were logical. To be more theory-heavy would make the book less accessible; to make it more accessible meant to make the book less theory-heavy. At which point the reviewer basically concedes this issue with the book derives from his own interest in Queer Theory and his own knowledge of the complexity of these words. His is a subjective response, more "I wanted to know more about this" than "this author made a mistake." As epitomes of the modes of review I am critiquing—the first phrase acknowledges the source of the criticism as an interaction between reader and book; the second states as "truth" that the author did something that is, objectively, insufficient. The first acknowledges that the perception of a problem resides in the reviewer's desires and, thus, leaves it for readers of the review to determine if this critique is valid and to what extent. The second states as fact that the book could have been better if written in some nebulously better way the reviewer demands despite not having the gumption to write the book himself.

 If your entire perspective as a reviewer, scholar, or critic of any kind can be boiled down to, "Well, that's not how I would have done it," and if you've never done it, meaning you didn't write the thing you think you could have done better, then don't write a review. Delete your account. You are spending so much time reviewing that you aren't doing real work. If you think you know a better way to do it, then do it. What's the point, even, of your review except jealousy and insolence? Maybe your mom cares, but probably no one else.  

 I tarry on these long discussions of my reviews to reach the point of my digression—the reviews that were not written about my book, and why that strikes me so hard.

 A low-key academic book from a university press rarely makes it to the pages of the New York Times Review of Books, except there is precedent with Faulkner. Sally Wolff-King's Ledgers of History received mainstream news coverage when it was released, despite being just an academic book from a university press, and I've always assumed that her subject, Faulkner, had appeal to the literati, regardless of their place, or not, in academia. So, I assumed my book on Faulkner might turn a couple of heads. Carl Rollyson's new biography of Faulkner, also from a university press and making no significant new claims about Faulkner, has managed some second-tier attention in non-academic review forums, which has left me a little apoplectic over the disregard for my work—which at least has the benefit of shock value for its novelty if nothing else. More significantly, Michael Gorra's pedestrian attempt to say the Civil War influenced Faulkner was released late this summer to reviews in The Atlantic and The National Review, among other mainstream media. Admittedly, Gorra's book is from a commercial press that probably paid for that publicity, but I did genuinely delude myself into believing my book would get a few reviewers to read it upon its release, just for the sake of its rarity value. It is not every day that someone can make an actual new claim about Faulkner, so if rehashed old claims make it to The Atlantic, surely a 140,000 word claim as unique as mine might turn even one elite East Coast head and elicit some response, however tepid.

 As for academic reviews in peer-reviewed journals, I can't really say what the future holds in that sphere of limited influence. Academic reviews tend to take longer, especially now that academic publishing has slowed down production during the pandemic. I will digress about my expectations for these at a later time. I have suspicions that things will not go very well.

 For what it's worth, I actually know that the University of Mississippi Press did me the courtesy of sending advance review copies (ARC) to several large newspaper and magazines, likely under the same assumption I made that a book making an original claim about Faulkner would turn a few heads and garner modest publicity. None of those reviews materialized, but something else did, which feels a lot like a justification for the claim the elite reviewers in mainstream media are just assholes of proportions as epic as the newly released trailer for Dune.

 In January and early February, I began getting calls to my work number from a retired English professor living in New York. He had read my book and was so moved by it and found it so awesome that he just wanted to talk to me about it. We played phone tag for a while before I finally got ahold of him one night in February. He talked my ear off singing the praises of my book. It was one of the most wonderful experiences a writer could have. I hope I am always available to return a call or answer an email if my book moves someone to the point they want to reach out to me. That's the height of fame and accomplishment that I prefer to attain—to do something good and have normal people want to talk to me about it . . . and never turning them away.

 The only negative from the experience—at least in its immediate context—was when he told me how he came across my book in the first place. He found it at The Strand. Apparently, this world-renowned bookstore has a small room out of the way in a basement area where they sell discarded ARC. This retired professor had found an ARC of my book in late December, which he purchased, read, and took the time to look me up and call me to talk about.

 But it also means some reviewer for one of those mainstream newspapers or magazines in the publishing milieu of New York City had gotten an ARC, never read it nor reviewed it, and dumped it off at The Strand before my book's official release date.

 The professor who called me did not share this information to ruin my day, and given the praise he heaped on my book just for the sake of saying he really liked it, I didn't feel too terribly let down when I heard about the ARC having been dumped like that. At least not at the time. Now, months later, when only one review of the book has appeared in a mainstream publication, the sting of this knowledge hurts more.

 But only in context.

 I need to pause here and  mention that there was another negative experience that emerged from that phone conversation with a retired professor living in New York City, beyond the immediate context of finding out some ass-hat reviewer sold off ARC of my book without ever bothering to read or review it. 

 At the time that retired professor called me, neither I nor anyone else, really, was talking about COVID-19, but about six weeks later, in those horrible days in April, when people over 65, especially men, and especially in New York City, became the frontline victims of this terrible terrible terrible disease, I spent a lot of time staring at walls and thinking specifically about the man who had called me about my book. I had—and still have—his phone number, but I have been afraid to follow up for fear I will find out he died. I also sometimes think of that high school teacher in California and his students. They lived near Los Angeles, and, surely, they struggled as numbers of infections in California rose precipitously. And, of course, while my home state of Wisconsin was complaining that bars weren't open, California went on legit lockdown. Where is that teacher now and where his students? What has become of these lives that I had the privilege to encounter because I wrote a book?

 Had I known then what was coming at us in the Spring and Summer to follow, I'd have stayed on the phone longer that night with that professor or written more follow-up with that teacher in California, not so they could heap more praise on my accomplishment. No, I just miss human contact and see its value in ways that I ignored prior to our current hellscape of lies, death, and misguided appeals to personal freedom. These two connections that emerged in the early days after my book's publication feel like the last tender mercies of humanity before the whole world turned inward to protect itself.

 I hope both men and those students are all making it through okay. They are in my thoughts often.  

 Experience and perception—and the knowledge we gain in life and refine through both—are at the heart of the art of review. Responsible reviewers pick works that align with their experience and perception—their knowledge—and bring to bear those twin engines to offer perspective on the value and viability of the work they've chosen to discuss. As I said in my last post, this is not, strictly speaking, scholarship. It is informed response helping frame newly released books to claim those books for their relationship to broader contexts, which helps make visible why the books matter and lays the groundwork for how to start sorting out what a book can mean. Not what they do mean—nothing means anything in and of itself. It only has a potential for meaning—it can mean. A responsible review considers what a book can mean when it speaks to readers strongly enough that they seek ways to respond to it.

 Some readers read reviews; others write then. The subject is the book; the subject is the reader. Responsible reviewers understand these levels of subjectivity and engage with the potentials of the work to hand.

 And my goal is to be responsible. Henceforth, I will begin writing a series of reviews of books that focus on queer southern identities, histories, and communities. I will review works of fiction and non-fiction, and in that latter category, memoir and scholarly writing. I will not review a work that I think is so problematic that I cannot give it a fair but positive assessment. I will not write a review that is intended to lord over work by another author as if I have more knowledge, a better grasp of content, or clever insights that would improve someone else's work. I will review work for what it is; I will consider it in light of its potential to reframe our current (and received) notions about queer identity in southern spaces.

 I will title these reviews "Unsolicited Reviews," and my ulterior purpose, which I'm pleased to state openly, will be to write reviews of works by authors whose projects speak to me and my interests. And do them the courtesy of complimenting and contextualizing their work.

 An Unsolicited Review: Because every author deserves to have someone recognize the value of their work.

 And they do, or at least "every author" who is working to carve out meaning in the field of queer southern studies does, from where I'm sitting (so does everyone else, but I have to establish some parameters due to the fact that, my lord in heaven, there are a lot of books in this world). I call these reviews "unsolicited" because in most cases I will have some connection to the author. In this field of queer southern writing and authorship, we are hardly legion even if our subject matter is vast; but I will not write reviews that are pre-approved by authors, nor will I review a work by request. I will set my own agenda for reviewing books as I encounter books to which I'd like to turn my attention because I recognize value in them—which is no doubt a subjective category, but that is the whole point.

 The art of review attains its status as art when we recognize that our position as subjects emerges from our engagement and interaction with others as subjects, not objects, in a complex but interwoven web of multiple voices. And not competing voices, but collective voices—we are in this shit together, and we only make it more than shit when we find our way to shared fires rather than cast ourselves alone into dark nights in search of phantasms of individualistic triumph, as if we survive independent of each other by the will of a lone torch. It may not be a room of our own, but it is a flame stoked by many hands that requires many more to gather fuel in what too many people have too long assumed were vacant lots. 

 And, finally, to be clear, this entire endeavor is built on subjectivity. That is not a flaw but a virtue—when we are responsible about it. When we review responsibly (if we can review responsibly), maybe more can emerge than repetitions of pathologies. If nothing else, I'll be content with that.