Dale Peck

Readers of The New York Times Magazine may have noticed a long but entertaining article in yesterday's edition about one Dale Peck, a novelist and a book critic who's known for his hatchet jobs against various authors, living and dead. Apparently he's making waves; his critical prose, samples of which in this article suggest a cross between H.L. Mencken and Joe Queenan, have brought praise from those who think Peck should ask where literature is going and condemnation from those who think he's just accentuating the negative to get attention.

So what does Dale's career have to do with me, you ask? Well, as you may have noticed, I just referred to him by his first name. That's because Dale was an acquaintance of mine in college. We weren't buddies or anything like that, but we were both English majors and we were in the same courses together a couple of times. I should have known from Dale's comments about books in class that he'd get pretty far. He was a pretty intense fellow.

Do I envy him for his successful writing career? Not at all. I've never thought I'm good enough to write novels, and if I had to review books for a living, I don't think I could make it through a bad book, one maybe 268 pages long, and then have to explain why it's so bad. And that would involve - what? - two weeks of reading? I always wanted to be a record reviewer; if you have to sit through a bad CD, at least the pain is over in forty minutes.

So here's to you, Dale, for all the success you've had and all that's to come; you deserve it. And if I ever do get a novel published and you review it, go easy on me. (Just remember, it'll be my first book! :-D)