When authors attack

To use a Mets phrase, “It’s amazing” that Jeff Pearlman can make a living focusing on the dark side of people. Baseball players are people - period. They have talent to swing a bat, run, throw a ball, but this does not make them enlighted, beyond temptation or anymore newsworthy than my father, an insurance executive who drank too much, was abusive to his family and as great as he was at work, could have been so much more.

This team is a microcosm of the real world and there are companies out there that make the story of the 1986 Mets pale in comparison.

Yes, Gooden and Strawberry could have been Hall of Famers, but they were strong at baseball and weak at life. This makes them human, not tragic.

We do love to put people at pedestles, simply to knock them off and watch them fall.

The 1986 Mets are my favorite team of all time. They had heart and they went into the season with the highest of expectations for them, and won.

What more did you really want from them?

Spend your money on a book with an ending that you don’t already know.

******

With that experience in mind, I was fascinated/confused by the recent actions of Alice Hoffman, the well-regarded novelist whose recent book, “The Story Sisters,” was panned by critics. In particular, Hoffman was apparently enraged by a review by the Boston Globe’s Roberta Silman, which included the statement, “this new novel lacks the spark of the earlier work. Its vision, characters, and even the prose seem tired.”

Did Hoffman ignore the review? No. Did she complain to her friends? No. Did she laugh it off? No. Hoffman—against all better judgment—used her Twitter account to slam Silman. Among her Tweets:

• “Roberta Silman in the Boston Globe is a moron. How do some people get to review books? And give the plot away.”

• “Now any idiot can be a critic. Writers used to review writers. My second novel was reviewed by Ann Tyler. So who is Roberta Silman?”

• “Girls are taught to be gracious and keep their mouths shut. We don’t have to.”

• “My single bad review in my hometown. This is a town where a barking dog is the second top story on the news.”

• “No wonder there is no book section in the Globe anymore – they don’t care about their readers, why should we care about them.”

Hoffman bottomed out when she printed Silman’s email address and her phone number and advised followers to tell Silman what they think of “snarky critics.”

Glub.

Believe me, I hate being criticized. Hate it. You inevitably read a bad review and think, “What the f%$# did you ever write?” But then I think about it—if I can slam Transformers 2, why can’t a non-author slam me? All’s fair …

I don’t know Hoffman. I’ve never read her books. But I do have to sorta question a person who writes “Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of our most distinguished novelists …” on her own website. Come day’s end, we’re not doctors or firemen. We don’t cure cancer, save kittens from trees, stop crime. We merely write. A great profession, no doubt. But just a profession.

In other words, my advice to Hoffman: Chill.