In one fell swoop, Drew manages to insult the FXBG Advance, the city of Fredericksburg, the Card Cellar, and the best-selling author since Moses. See what we editors put up with?
When they finally construct the pantheon of the world’s greatest book critics, the marble bust of Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles will certainly sit beside such luminaries as E.B. White and John Updike.
But while White and Updike were periodically distracted from devoting themselves to book reviews by writing great works of literature, Charles has managed a Zen-like focus to become the funniest book critic in the history of book criticism. White and Updike are also regrettably dead, so that made interviewing them difficult.
In this FXBG Advance EXCLUSIVE, humorist Drew Gallagher interviews the funniest book critic to ever shuffle this mortal coil, with Charles discussing his views on Danielle Steel’s 700th novel, the importance of Substacks in maintaining a free press, and why local book reviews and their reviewers should be paid substantially more. (He didn’t really say that, but I think it was implied.)
The interview has been condensed for both clarity and comedic purposes.
Drew Gallagher: Have you ever heard of The FXBG Advance?
Ron Charles: I have not. (Editor’s Note: Yo! Drew! Here’s where you’re supposed to say we’re multipartisan, and for $8 a month we’ll give him a secret decoder ring.)
DG: Have you ever been interviewed for a Substack before?
RC: Not that I’m aware of, no.
DG: Can you tell me what a Substack is? Because I’m not sure even though I’m writing for one.
RC: Some kind of pay per play newsletter?
DG: That works for me, although I don’t get paid.
DG: The Free Lance-Star book reviewer Drew Gallagher once referred to you as the “Grand Poobah” of book reviewers. You have won a National Book Critics Award as well as been a juror for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Do any of those accolades exceed the title of Grand Poobah bestowed upon you by an unpaid book reviewer?
RC: No; in fact, when I draw up my resume I just use the Grand Poobah line and leave off those other things. Once people see that, they don’t really care about the other things.
DG: You recently reviewed a book by Danielle Steel (“Only The Brave”)?
RC: Ooooh, it was so good. (Insert eyeroll emoji here.)
DG: Based upon your review, it was her 700th book, give or take a title. You did not especially like the book, but your review was incredibly funny. Is the pain in reading such a book minimized by the comedic potential you can explore in your review?
RC: That is tough. It was a fairly easy read. There are books that are bad that are not easy reads. That is very unpleasant, but this book did race along. So, it really wasn’t that painful, and I certainly never go into a review thinking I’m going to deride it or make fun of it. How wonderful it would have been if I had gotten around to Danielle
Steel’s 700th book and it was spectacular. That would have been real news. I didn’t take any particular joy in saying it was bad.
DG: What precipitated reading Danielle Steel at this point in your career. Was it your choice, or did you piss off someone at the Post?
RC: I think it was her publisher that convinced me to read it. It was presented as this is her 50th anniversary of writing or something like that. It was some monumental moment in her career, and I thought maybe this is a chance to peek in on her career and check in and see what is up. She’s sold more books than anyone else alive, so let’s see what’s going on there.
DG: After reading it, do you have a better idea of why she’s sold more books than anyone else alive?
RC: I really don’t because there are so many fine writers, even light writers, which is a perfectly reputable thing to be. I don’t know why you would read this instead.
DG: Do you or the Post ever worry that when you are critical of someone with Danielle Steel’s fame that there will be some blowback against you or the Post?
RC: I’m sure the Post doesn’t worry at all about that sort of thing. Afterall, we brought down a president, so we’re not worried about some romance writer. Do I worry? I don’t worry. I do feel bad because I don’t like to write negative reviews. I know it’s hard to write even a weak novel. It takes a long time and a lot of effort. Working at a place like The Post there is no particular blowback that would intimidate the paper or any of its writers or editors that I’ve ever heard of.
DG: Do you think that book reviews, reviewed by local reviewers, are still an important part of a newspaper’s (or substack’s) offering?
RC: Are there any newspapers left like that? That’s a real dying forum.
DG: The Free Lance-Star newspaper here in Fredericksburg used to run local reviews, but they did away with that about a year or two ago. The FXBG Advance still runs local reviews (insert sound of trumpets here).
RC: That’s great! You get the local color, you get books related to your own scene, your own politics, your own region. I don’t understand why they would cut that. People who are still subscribing to a print newspaper are probably the kind of people who like to read and probably read more books than the average person, so why would you cut that copy? I just don’t get it.
DG: Do you ever go to bookstores and rummage through the paperback section, looking for books you reviewed, to see if they have blurbed your review? I’m asking for a friend.
RC: Yes, I have done that many times. Of course.
DG: If the books did blurb you, do you then buy them and take them home and display them prominently on a countertop even though you already own a hardback copy of the book? (My wife insists I’m the only one who would ever do this.)
RC: I’m sure I did that at some time, but I’ve been at this a long, long time so now I just do it to amuse myself to see how my negative review has been carefully spliced and diced so they have two positive words to glom together with ellipsis and put it on the back cover.
DG: Have you ever been to Fredericksburg?
RC: I don’t think I ever have, no.
DG: There is a shop downtown called The Card Cellar, and they sponsor this column. So, I assume you have never been to The Card Cellar?
RC: Sadly, no, but it sounds like my kind of place because I do buy cards everywhere I go.
(I was fortunate enough to interview Charles while he was posing for the artist’s rendering of his bust for the Pantheon of Greatest Book Reviewers. As such, he was a captive interviewee and provided enough material for a second column. In the second part of our interview, we talk about the egos of book reviewers and how book reviewing is the equivalent of having sex with an attractive woman without, necessarily, having the tools for the job. Well, one of us made that analogy. The other could not get off the phone quick enough. To be continued…)
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