When I was roaming the Internet the other day, browsing memoirs of Ed Gorman (and I just had the memory that during my phone chat with him, Gorman also rushed to the defense of John D. MacDonald, who gets a little roughed-up in my book on Willeford — a couple of generations of paperback writers like Gorman held John Mac up as King of the Paperback, which I wasn’t disputing, all I was saying was that I thought Willeford was an infinitely greater writer), I surfed into one writer’s site and noticed the first blurb he had up in his long list of blurbs came from Publishers Weekly.
From a review I had written.
As I’ve mentioned, I don’t even look at the reviews as they appear — pretty much, I only spot one when it shows up somewhere I happen to look. A website. On the jacket for the next book in the series.
In large part that’s because the wordage often gets changed out in editorial, so I don’t have any great investment in the final product. I do the review, cash the cheque, an author gets some potential publicity out of it, however the review reads, and I figure my job here is done.
But this review had a flashy bit of wording in it that I liked. A novel of the Mob, I called it a goombah gumbo.
When I popped it in, I pointed out that goombah might be too offensive to someone somewhere, but it’s a novel of the Mob, so what the hell, I’d try it. If it was too much, they could delete it.
A change was made. Per the author’s website, what I turned in as “goombah gumbo” hit print as “goombah stew.”
Arrggghhh!
Not as good, at all, at all.
But at least the guy got a useable blurb out of it.
