Seconded

I’m really glad Tom Spurgeon reviewed American Widow (Villard), because some variation on cowardice has been keeping me from writing about my own negative response to the book. I’m reluctant to review autobiographical works in the first place, which springs from the probably false assumption that creators are more sensitive to criticism of their own stories as opposed to criticism of ones they’ve invented. (There’s also the unpleasant prospect of essentially telling someone either that their life story is kind of boring or that they don’t tell it very well, or both.)

Anyway, Tom makes a fine argument against the book, and the only thing I’d add is that I felt like I knew less about the subject after I read it than I did before.