Matthew Dicks

Meteorological influences on a book review

A while back, Washington Post fiction critic extraordinaire Ron Charles tweeted:

Does being stuck inside writing a review on this gorgeous day make me even more annoyed with this tedious novel?

I was never able to determine the book to which he was referencing, but the comment It left me wondering if a critic’s personal circumstances might impact his opinion of a book.

Did the fine weather and his unfortunate confinement impact Charles’ review of the book?

Probably not. 

But are their more likely circumstances in which a critic’s opinion can be influenced?

For example, what about the previous novel that the critic has read?  If he has just finished reading a real clunker, does that give the next book a slight leg-up? 

And conversely, what if the critic has just read what he considers to be the book of the decade?  Will this influence his opinion of the next book he reviews?  Could the next book ever measure up to the previous book, and if not, will the review be inherently, if not purposefully, less favorable?

The list of potential influencers is endless. 

Did the critic and his wife engage in verbal fisticuffs just prior to sitting down to read the book?

Were the kids’ report cards uncommonly glowing?

Was dinner a disappointment?

Did the critic just have sex?

Did the critic’s iPhone refuse to sync?

Had the critic recently lost a lot of weight through minimal effort?

Was the local 7-11 out of Chunky Monkey and Cherry Garcia?

Was the critic drunk?

Was his back sore?

Was a recent performance review less than favorable?

Does the cover art on the book remind the critic of the girl in high school who dumped him for his step-brother?

Did the critic’s dog die?

While I like to think that all book critics are impartial and souls, perfectly capable of excluding their personal successes and disappointments from their work day, it’s probably not possible.

As impartial as they may be, a personal crisis tends to weave its way into the fabric of our lives, whether we like it or not.   

So  wonder how often a critic’s opinion of a book is slightly shifted by circumstance.

Can the weather or a technological snafu or the death of a pet change a review for better or worse?

Maybe. 

And so I give my my author’s prayer:

When it comes time to review my next book, may all the fine critics of the world be the slightly drunk, suddenly thin parents of straight A students who have been away at camp for a month, allowing critic and spouse to eat Chunky Money ice cream and have sex on the dining room table after a more-than-satisfying late-night dinner. 

Unexpected links

A couple links you may be interested in related to UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO:

The first two parts (Part 1) (Part 2) in a three-part series on the realities of a book tour.  I’m writing these pieces for the Water Street Books blog in preparation for my upcoming appearance in a couples weeks. 

A terrific review of UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO on Book Page. 

Probably my favorite review of all-time.  I expect to be re-reading it in times of doubt. 

Daily Candy and The Wall Street Journal!

This has been a good day. 

UNEXPECTEDLY, MILO hit bookstore shelves yesterday, and today it was reviewed by Daily Candy and reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. 

Daily Candy, an enormously popular website that everyone seemed to know about prior to the review with the exception of me, ran their review on their front page and made it the subject of their Daily Candy email blast, which goes to seemingly half the people I know (unbeknownst to me).

Daily Candy said:

“We all know if you spot a mysterious bag underneath a bench, you should probably move away quickly and call the authorities.

Unless it’s full of old videotapes. In which case, you should go home and watch every last one. At least, that’s what Milo Slade, protagonist in Matthew Dicks’s new novel, Unexpectedly, Milo, does.

The earnest voyeur discovers a video diary belonging to a young woman (whom he dubs Freckles) and quickly becomes fixated on her best friend, Tess, who ran away when the two were just teenagers and was never heard from again. Slade decides Tess is alive and embarks on a cross-country road trip to find her — all the while battling a demon or two (or twenty) of his own, including the recent dissolution of his marriage and a severe case of OCD.

Sound depressing? It’s not. Dicks manages to make us laugh out loud with crazed characters, like Linda, the pancake saleswoman, and Macy, a busty Southern waitress. The end result: an adventure of a summer read you’ll never put down.”

The Wall Street Journal said:

“The contemporary Connecticut of Matthew Dicks's amusing and engaging second novel, "Unexpectedly, Milo," is a much more whimsical place than Mr. Yoshida's Japan, yet it is a slightly disturbing place, too.

Mr. Dicks's peculiar protagonist—Milo Slade, a 33-year-old home health-care aide—suffers from habitual, unignorable impulses to do any number of odd, "pressure-releasing" actions, from twisting open the vacuum-sealed tops of jelly jars (he keeps a supply on hand in his car trunk) to inducing others to speak aloud in spontaneous conversation a random word ("loquacious," for instance) that has popped into Milo's head.

Milo's odd urges have plagued him his whole life: "He couldn't help but attribute them to some other force, one he often imagined as a German U-boat captain on duty somewhere in his brain, gray uniform adorned with gold epaulets, standing ramrod straight, eyes pressed into a periscope, capable of watching Milo's every move, just waiting to twist the valves and raise the levers that would increase the pressure of the demand at the appropriate moment."

By chance, Milo finds a stash of confessional videocam tapes made by a woman he doesn't know who feels seems to feel responsible for the disappearance and possible death of a former high-school classmate of hers. The obsessive, empathetic Milo determines to find the missing woman and relieve the camcorder-confessor of her long-time guilt: "He couldn't begin to imagine the joy and the sense of relief that she would feel on realizing that she was free from her burden."

Whether Milo himself will ever achieve a comparable equilibrium and happiness is part of the cosmic mystery surrounding this unexpectedly endearing hero, whose self-chosen motto is: "I'm not crazy, I'm just colorful."

My wife said:

Things are a little surreal up in here...

She’s right. 

Kudos for SOMETHING MISSING

Eight months after its release and it’s still nice to read a good review of SOMETHING MISSING by someone who is encouraging fellow readers to give it a whirl.

Another review to close out 2009

Hartford Magazine reviewed SOMETHING MISSING for their January 2010 edition, which arrived at my home this week.   

Marion Dooling writes that “Matthew Dicks’s tale about OCD thief Martin Railsback and "’his clients’ is a fun, quirky book that kept me reading far beyond regular bedtime.  His sense of humor and off-beat storyline often made me smile and share passages with friends.”

A nice holiday treat for me!

Praise for SOMETHING MISSING

A couple great reviews popped up online today, including, the NEWSDAY review from the Sunday paper and Bookslut’s review (a lit blog with an odd title but much respect in the publishing industry).

Foiled by meat

On Sunday my wife and I were driving back from New Haven, listening to the Yankees play the Blue Jays.  We were also in search of a copy of NEWSDAY, as a review of SOMETHING MISSING was scheduled to appear on Sunday.

It was a crucial moment in the ballgame when we pulled into a local 7-11, our fifth stop so far.  NEWSDAY isn’t easy to find in central Connecticut.  With our daughter sleeping in the back, I had been running into the bookstores, convenience stores and gas stations looking for the paper while my wife waited in the car, as would be the case at this stop as well. 

The game was tied at four in the fifth inning.  The Yankees were at bat, two men on, with Derek Jeter at the plate.  He is about half a dozen hits from becoming the all-time Yankee’s hit leader, and he’s having a monster year.  A hit machine. 

The count was two balls-two strikes (any Yankee fan knows that Jeter never gets a hit before he has two strikes on him) when I turned to my wife and asked, “Please listen to what happens here, okay?  I want to know if Jeter gets a hit and if the Yankees take the lead.”

She agreed as I leapt forth from the car and ran into the 7-11, where I at last found copies of NEWSDAY.  I took a moment to confirm that my review was in the paper and then paid for the copy.  I couldn’t have been gone for more than three minutes.

When I returned to the car, there was a commercial advertising hot dogs on the radio.  The inning had ended, though in my heart of hearts, I was hoping that Jeter had hit a homerun and the commercials were signaling a call to the bullpen.  Unlikely but possible.    

“What happened?”  I asked.  

“Huh”?

“What happened with Jeter’s at-bat?  Did he get a hit?”

“Oh,” my wife said.  “I wasn’t listening.”

“You weren’t listening?  All I asked you to do was keep track of one at-bat.  And it was nearly over when I left!”

“I know,” she said.  “But I got distracted by that sign for Halal Meat.  Look at that long list of food items, and stuck right in the middle of all that food is Calling Cards.  Weird.  Huh?”

I checked the result of Jeter’s at-bat later, when the blinding glare and psychic gravity of Halal Meat could no longer exert its influence upon my wife.  Jeter walked, but the next batter struck out to end the inning.

The Yankees went on to lose 14-8 in one of their most poorly played games of the year.  But the review, which is not currently available online, was great, and it included a photo of me and the cover of the book.     

Boston Globe review

There was a very favorable review of SOMETHING MISSING in the Boston Globe today.  Among the many pleasing lines from the piece was this gem:

Though the book is essentially a high-concept caper, it is deftly constructed, really exciting at a couple of junctures, moving at others, and very, very funny.

It’s the “very, very funny” descriptor which always surprises me.  Though I’m not absolutely certain, I cannot remember a single moment during the process of writing SOMETHING MISSING when I thought that the book would be funny.  There were moments when my wife would laugh while reading the manuscript and I would have to ask her what she thought was funny, wondering what the hell she could be finding so amusing. 

I think that in the end, Martin’s approach to life is amusing, and as the writer, I merely benefited from this good fortune.

I can’t help but wonder who is the funny one in this relationship: me or Martin?

More attention for SOMETHING MISSING

NEWSDAY is picking up the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's highly favorable review of SOMETHING MISSING to run on Sunday, September 6!  My father-in-law informs me that NEWSDAY has the seventeenth largest circulation in the country.

Not only is the review favorable, but it’s my favorite review thus far.  The writer just seems to understand the book like no other reviewer.

Admittedly, I may be slightly biased. 

Well-timed and welcomed!

It’s after midnight. It’s still incredibly hot and humid, even though I’m on the Connecticut shoreline and the sun has been down for hours.  I’ve just finished loading two tons of DJ equipment into the truck and am preparing for an hour drive back home after spending the last seven hours entertaining at a wedding.  Getting this small, older crowd to dance was like pulling teeth.  I still can’t shake a cold that has plagued me for almost two weeks.  I’m tired, and I haven’t seen my wife and daughter for more than twelve hours. 

Then I receive a message through Twitter that a new review of SOMETHING MISSING has appeared in The Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, a paper that my DJ partner tells me that he reads almost daily, being a Packer fan. 

It’s a great review.  Possibly my favorite so far.  Most definitely my favorite paragraph of praise so far:

"Something Missing" is the kind of book that will make you miss your next bus, class or bedtime. Compulsive behavior can make for great comedy, and Dicks makes the most of it. I don't know if the author has watched any Harold Lloyd movies, but he certainly brings the dangling-man-in-peril feel to some of Martin's second-story adventures. Yet he never reduces Martin to a cartoon of an obsessive-compulsive man. Martin is deeply plausible, and somehow noble within the straitjacket of his patterns and elaborate rationalizations.

Best of all, it came at just the right time.  Just when I needed a pick-me-up. 

A well-timed tweet.  Is there anything better?