Last night my editor sent e-mail. "Did you see the Booklist review?" she asked. That was it. An editor should never say that to a writer without some sort of preface or appendage, as we're an insecure lot. The whole notion of reviews is nerve-racking because--like many writers--I always assume the worst. But I don't even like reading reviews when they're starred, glowing, and wonderfully accurate and articulate--just because reviews, whether good or otherwise, are unsettling. It has oft been said that writers forget the great reviews the second they've been read, but can quote verbatim every word of every single less-than-glowing review. For me, that's true. Now by "preface" or "appendage," I'm thinking something along the lines of the following: Congratulations! Have you seen the Booklist review? or Did you see the Booklist review? It's wonderful! or even How disappointing! Did you see the Booklist review? You know...something to give us an inkling of whether we should be heading to the bathroom to open a vein or not. But no, there it was: "Did you see the Booklist review?"

Someone--another writer--once asked me what I did when I received a review that was less than flattering. I should have been offended that this writer, who is now a friend, assumed that I might have experience with unflattering reviews. But the fact is, I did and do. What did I do? Upon receiving a lukewarm review once, I swallowed a bottle of pills and after puking up my guts for four solid days, I decided there had to be a more constructive way to handle the disappointing news. Just kidding--except for the part about deciding there had to be something constructive I could do. I looked up every review that I could find written by this particular reviewer, and guess what. They were all lukewarm or, worse, flat-out negative. The next thing I did is I looked up the reviews of several books that I particularly enjoyed and written by authors whose work I admired, and almost every one of those had negative or lukewarm reviews. So on the one hand, I learned something about the reviewer and on the other, I rationalized that I was in very good company.

"Did you see the Booklist review?" I e-mailed my editor immediately saying I had not. And then I added: Do I want to? Before the night was out she responded: "YES! It's great!" And she copied the review into her e-mail. I read it and am happy to report that We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin is off to a good start. I'm not sure I'd call the review "great," but it is solid. Great would have been seeing a star next to it, and I didn't see a star...unless it got lost in the scanning. No star. No star. Do you see what I mean about reviews being unsettling?