Dale Peck is one of those writers who’s infamous among literary types and unheard of among normal people. His book reviews 10 years ago were all anyone could talk about. They were mean and unpredictable. He called Rick Moody “the worst writer of his generation” in the New Republic, the same magazine in which he compared Ulysses to diarrhea. He was a grandstander and a flamethrower, which made him fun to read, but it was fun in the sense that a demolition derby is “fun.” You experienced the fun while distrusting anyone who would go to such lengths to make it fun. The suspense in Hatchet Jobs, Peck’s book of collected takedowns, was in watching him bring every weapon he’s ever owned to the task of “proving” good writers were bad writers. He seemed to have endless energy for that project.
Those essays bothered people, but they didn’t bother me. (Especially because the very last essay in the book does nothing but praise Rebecca Brown.) Anyone who’s read vicious reviews by Dorothy Parker, Virginia Woolf, Mary McCarthy, Pauline Kael, or Joan Didion would be able to see that Peck’s pieces are part of a long tradition…
