Darian Ray, Who Are You?

I recently needed to track down the ISBN for September Fair. Amazon.com seemed the quickest route, so I logged on, searched for my book, scrolled down, highlighted the ISBN, pasted it where I needed it, and went on with my life.

If you’re an author, you’ve already caught the lie in the above paragraph. It’s in the last phrase: “went on with my life.” You’d have to be a superhero to leave your Amazon book page without at least skimming the reader reviews.

My self-involvement is not the point of this post, though. It’s the springboard. You see, in my skimming, I found six generous reviews and one slam. The slam was by a reviewer named Darian Ray. Stick with me. I’m going somewhere with this, and it’s not where you think.

I clicked on Darian Ray’s name to be brought to his/her other reviews. Curiosity, let’s call it, because we’re polite and don’t want to draw attention to my insecure defensiveness. What I found was that Darian is a self-proclaimed mystery author with no publications who has reviewed at least four mysteries a week since 2006 and not liked a one of them.

(Let’s take a break to acknowledge that there are legitimate reasons to post a critical review of a book, including one I’ve written. Now back to the interesting stuff.)

That’s over a thousand mysteries Darian Ray has reviewed, and apparently every one of them, from Laura Lippman’s bestseller to the little POD author trying to make a go of it, stunk to high heaven. And Ray went to Amazon.com to tell the world, sometimes daily.

I considered that maybe Ray really was a mystery author and, under a pseudonym, a mystery reviewer who thought the best way to raise his/her boat was by sinking everyone else’s. I quickly discarded that notion, though. If you’ve spent ten seconds in the mystery community, you know there is no match for its supportiveness (check out this recent article by Harlen Coben for a roundabout example of that: “Return of the Class of ‘80”).

But what explanation does that leave? Why would someone who apparently liked mysteries only slightly more than heart attacks spend so much time reading and reviewing them? (And I really think this person read them, based on the facts s/he dropped in her reviews.) And what does this say about reader reviews in general? I take them to heart when online shopping, but can they deliberately be used to harm a product or person? Are there similar stories out there, or was this an isolated case?

I appreciate your input on this because I really have spent some brain hours on it, and just can’t find a logical explanation. And as an update, I recently contacted Amazon.com to suss out the story on Darian Ray. They removed all of his/her reviews a week later, on what grounds I’m not sure.

Where Do You People Get Off? by Jess Lourey

I can see the allure of the writing life—spend all day in your pajamas clicking out words which make scenes which make books that people can’t put down, bothering to shower only when you have to go out to cash those big royalty checks. What they don’t tell you about (besides the lie to all of that) are the angry reader emails.

I’ve gotten a handful in my three-year writing career, fewer than five but more than I need. Here’s an excerpt from the most recent one, which I received while on vacation with my boyfriend this past weekend:

“I just read September Fair, and it started out strong but then got stupid…why is it always the business owner who is the murderer? And your language? ‘FU’--yuck! And one of your characters had multiple sex partners!!!”

First, don’t be worried that I’ve given away the ending by sharing this slam. There is more than one small business owner in the novel, the small business owner(s) didn’t do it, and no small business owner in any of my previous books was the killer. But that’s the danger—dissecting these slams and all the ways they’re wrong and might be right, feeling that icky green anger burble up from my stomach caused by someone disliking my writing enough to seek out my email address and tell me how terrible I am--it’s the trap that lures me in every time.

I’d previously received a different slam for September Fair, telling me that while the book was fine, this reader was sick of “you people” telling her what to eat and what not to eat, and she wanted to know where “you people” got off controlling her life. In the novel, there is an animal rights activist who talks about how meat and dairy products are produced, and it is pretty gross, but I’m fine with my readers eating whatever they enjoy. And I sent her an email letting her know that. (Read here to find out why that wasn’t a good idea.)

I get that some people aren’t going to like my books, either my writing style or the content, and I understand that a certain percentage of the population feels compelled to use their personal opinions as weapons, but I still don’t know how to distance myself from the pain of random, oddly personal reader criticism (which, for the record, I separate from valid and constructive criticism of my writing, which is a blessing I’ve learned to appreciate). Any suggestions? If not, any war stories to add company to my misery?