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By AMY HARMON
New York Times
Published: February 14, 2004
Close observers of Amazon.com noticed something peculiar this
week: the company's Canadian site had suddenly revealed the
identities of thousands of people who had anonymously posted
book reviews on the United States site under signatures like "a
reader from New York."
The weeklong glitch, which Amazon fixed after outed reviewers
complained, provided a rare glimpse at how writers and readers
are wielding the online reviews as a tool to promote or pan a
book - when they think no one is watching.
John Rechy, author of the best-selling 1963 novel "City of
Night" and winner of the PEN-USA West lifetime achievement
award, is one of several prominent authors who have apparently
pseudonymously written themselves five-star reviews, Amazon's
highest rating. Mr. Rechy, who laughed about it when approached,
sees it as a means to survival when online stars mean sales.
"That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book
to me is absurd," said Mr. Rechy, who, having been caught,
freely admitted to praising his new book, "The Life and
Adventures of Lyle Clemens," on Amazon under the signature "a
reader from Chicago." "How to strike back? Just go in and rebut
every single one of them."
Mr. Rechy is in good company. Walt Whitman and Anthony Burgess
both famously reviewed their own books under assumed names. But
several modern-day writers said the Internet, where anyone from
your mother to your ex-agent can anonymously broadcast an
opinion of your work, has created a more urgent need for
self-defense.
Under Amazon's system, any user may submit a review without
publicly providing any personal information (or evidence of
having read the book). The posting of real names on the Canadian
site was for many a reminder that anonymity on the Internet is
seldom a sure thing.
"It was an unfortunate error," said Patricia Smith, an Amazon
spokeswoman. "We'll examine whatever happened and make sure it
won't happen again."
But even with reviewer privacy restored, many people say
Amazon's pages have turned into what one writer called "a
rhetorical war," where friends and family members are regularly
corralled to write glowing reviews and each negative one is
scrutinized for the digital fingerprints of known enemies.
One well-known writer admitted privately - and gleefully - to
anonymously criticizing a more prominent novelist who he felt
had unfairly reaped critical praise for years. She regularly
posts responses, or at least he thinks it is her, but the
elegant rebuttals of his reviews are also written from behind a
pseudonym.
Numbering 10 million and growing by tens of thousands each week,
the reader reviews are the most popular feature of Amazon's
sites, according to the company, which also culls reviews from
more traditional critics like Publishers Weekly. Many authors
applaud the democracy of allowing readers to voice their
opinions, and rejoice when they see a new one posted - so long
as it is positive.
But some authors say it is ironic that while they can for the
first time face their critics on equal footing, so many people
on both sides choose to remain anonymous. And some charge that
the same anonymity that encourages more people to discuss books
also spurs them to write reviews that they would never otherwise
attach their names to.
Jonathan Franzen, author of "The Corrections," winner of the
National Book Award, said that a first book by Tom Bissell last
fall was "crudely and absurdly savaged" on Amazon in anonymous
reviews he believed were posted by a group of writers whom Mr.
Bissell had previously written about in the literary magazine
The Believer.
"With the really flamingly negative reviews, I think it's always
worth asking yourself what kind of person has time to write
them," Mr. Franzen said. "I know that the times when I've been
tempted to write a nasty review online, I have never had
attractive motives." Mr. Franzen declined to say whether he had
ever given in to such temptation.
The suspicion that the same group of writers, known as the
Underground Literary Alliance, had anonymously attacked his
friend Heidi Julavits prompted the novelist Dave Eggers to write
a review last August calling Ms. Julavits's first novel "one of
the best books of the year."
Mr. Eggers, whose memoir, "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering
Genius," made him a literary celebrity, chose to post his review
as "a reader from St. Louis, MO." But the review appeared under
the name "David K Eggers" on Amazon's Canadian site on Monday,
and Mr. Eggers confirmed by e-mail that he had written it.
"I've done that one or two times before, when I like a book and
the reviews on Amazon seem bizarre," Mr. Eggers said. "In this
case I just tried to bring back some balance."
Michael Jackman of the Alliance, which champions "underground
writing" and has been critical of contemporary writers' focus on
themselves rather than the wider world, called the presumption
that his group had written the anonymous reviews "the height of
arrogance."
"It's interesting that they find some negative reviews and
assume that the reason for it must be partisan ax-grinding and
not real taste," Mr. Jackman said. "I mean, there's no
accounting for taste, is there?" Whether it is arrogance,
paranoia or simply common sense, positive reviews come under
suspicion, too.
"Could the five-star reviews (so far all but one from NY, NY) be
the work of the author's friends?" asked a one-star review by "A
reader from Washington, DC" on the review page for Susan
Braudy's "Family Circle," a biography of Kathy Boudin, the
former member of the Weather Underground, and her family.
Reviews are not the only features writers take advantage of to
improve their image on Amazon. Many have been known to list
their own books as alternate recommendations for any given book,
and to compile lists of favorite books with their own at the
top. Not unlike authors who have manipulated newspaper
best-seller lists by buying copies of their own books, one
ordered books through Amazon to raise his ranking there.
Books are far from the only products subject to anonymous
reviewing these days. The growth of electronic commerce has
spawned a new kind of critical authority - one's peers. On
Amazon alone, customers depend on one another for advice on
CD's, DVD's, garden tools and electronic equipment. On dozens of
other Web sites, average citizens anonymously review
restaurants, software, even teachers.
The word-of-mouth advice is widely seen as empowering to
consumers who no longer have to rely on privileged critics with
access to a television station or printing press to disseminate
their opinions. But the reliability of the new authorities is
the subject of increasing debate, at least among active Amazon
users.
As the Amazon sites expand their visitors are seen as an
increasingly important. Mark Moskowitz, an independent
filmmaker, sent an e-mail message to about 3,000 people this
week asking them to review the DVD of his film "Stone Reader,"
which goes on sale soon.
"If you didn't see it but heard it was good, go ahead and post
anyway, (what the heck)," Mr. Moskowitz told them. "It doesn't
obligate you for anything, even the truth."
Despite the widespread presumption that the reviews are stacked,
both readers and writers say they affect sales, especially for
new writers whose books are not widely reviewed elsewhere.
To increase the credibility of the reader reviews, Amazon has
introduced a means for users to vote on the quality of each
review, and a corresponding ranking of the top 1,000 reviewers.
But the site's discussion boards are full of carping about how
people are trying to play that system, too. Many prolific
reviewers speculate that Harriet Klausner, 55, who has long
reigned as No. 1, cannot possible read all the books she reviews.
In a telephone interview, Ms. Klausner, in turn, accused the No.
2 reviewer of getting people to vote for him and against her in
a "desperate attempt to be No. 1."
But such concerns among reviewers pale beside those shared by a
range of naturally obsessive authors.
Late last month on her radio talk show, Dr. Laura Schlessinger
used a call about an anonymous letter to vent her distress over
some of her Amazon reviewers, who she described as "scummy,
creepy people."
The feminist author Katha Pollitt mentioned in a recent New
Yorker article that she had considered anonymously posting a
nasty review on her ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend's Amazon page,
but refrained from doing so. In an interview, however, she said
she had chastised a friend whose book had no reviews on Amazon
when it came out, telling her to have friends to post some. The
friend followed her advice, but Ms. Pollitt was disappointed.
"I'm thinking what kind of friends are these? They've only
written one sentence."
The novelist A. M. Homes said the one Amazon review that had
stuck in her mind was a negative one from someone who signed off
"A reader from Chevy Chase," which is her hometown.
"The world of books is a very small world these days, and any
time someone takes the time to share their opinion it's
incredible," Ms. Homes said. "But I do want to know who that
person from Chevy Chase was and what their problem with me
really is."