It may be recalled that in a recent review for the Sunday NYT I didn’t much care for David Liss’s new historical thriller about the Alexander Hamilton era, The Whiskey Rebels. This morning author Liss makes clear in a letter in the Times that he didn’t much care for my review. He corrects me on one instance of badly misplaced snark, in which I took one of his characters’ references to “Macaulay” as an anachronistic reference to the Victorian Macaulay, when his intended reference was to the histories of Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay, which were popular among colonial American readers. I should have checked and caught that, which is my fault. More broadly, he thinks I couldn’t have approached his novel with an open mind because the politics he wears on his sleeve differs sharply from mine. The thing is, I have no problem recommending works whose politics I find wrongheaded when they offer up plausible dialogue, satisfying plot turns, witty observation and narrative, and so forth. It’s when they don’t that the buzz of political axe-grinding begins to obtrude.
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[…] Update Feb. 22: David Liss responds in a letter to the Times (including a significant correction to the above) and I reply. […]
Though hardly qualified as a psychologist, I believe the term for Mr. Liss’s accusations is “projection.” It thus follows that according to Liss, anyone who works for think tanks which promote unregulated markets is incapable of open mindedness when it comes to either this or any other subject. Hence (with minor extrapolation) all free-market capitalists are closed minded – especially those on the payroll for it.
My image of
KOSLiss is that of a kid holding his breath, fingers in ears, eye closed, stomping his feet.I am reminded of Paul Fussell’s essay about why authors should not write angry letters to publications that have poorly reviewed their books.