This past February my family and I took part of a vacation at a theme park in Orlando Florida that for legal reasons does not have a mouse for its mascot.
Let's just say that one of the rides my daughter and I decided to take (which for legal reasons does not play "Zip A Dee Doo Dah" 600 times in 10 minutes) got itself stuck just when we were about to get our somewhat soggy bodies (a flume was not involved, for legal reasons) out of our floating vehicle.
So we sat there. For a long time. What seemed like a very long time. And everyone was fairly polite about the mess because this was (not, for legal reasons) the Happiest Place on Earth and we were all doing what we could to keep it (not) that way.
Finally, in a triumph of comic timing, a boy of about nine behind us announced in no uncertain terms (and you have to imagine this in a fantastic Australian accent): "Best. Ride. Ever."
That sort of sounded to me like a book blurb.
While I have posted here before about blurbs for my own books, I confess that I've probably read more blurbs for other people's books than I've read the books themselves. There is an art to writing a blurb that I have never mastered, and expect I never will (I won't be asked nearly enough, for excellent reasons).
Most book blurbs are fairly generic: "If you're a fan of [extremely popular author], you'll love [completely pedestrian and/or possibly unknown author]"; "The characters jump off the page" (which would probably make the news); "A promising new series that crackles with plot twists and surprises!" (Crackles?)
But the really good ones reflect the style of the book on which they appear. They might come from a very well-known or only fairly well-known author, a celebrity (less frequent) or some figure related to the subject matter (a famous chef for a food-related book; a sports figure for a sports mystery and so on). They will either be specific to the book itself, reflect on the author by extension or have some hint at a value that will make the story inside less resistible to a savvy reader, which every reader wants to be.
The best blurbs will have some entertainment value of their own. This not only reflects well on the tome in question but on the blurb-er, which is not a requirement or even a goal of most blurbs, but doesn't hurt.
The bad ones will have puns.
"A hole in one!"--Golf mystery
"Four stars!"--Hotel mystery
"Sews up a fascinating plot!"--Needlepoint mystery
Like that.
Does anyone get anything out of those? There's no actual information in them. They're not fun to read. They don't tell you anything about the book, the author or the person writing the blurb. They tell you: This is a [fill in the blank] mystery, which lets' face it, you should know if you've even casually taken the thing off the shelf. If the cover image doesn't tell you that much, this book is already in some trouble.
As an author, the blurbs on my books have sentimental value in some cases. The person contributing is doing me a personal favor, after all, and hopefully would not say nice things about my book if s/he did not think they were true. One has a reputation to maintain, after all. In such cases, to the author (that's me) the blurb is sort of a nice note from someone I respect.
So when Larry Gelbart said my first novel was "wise, wicked and witty," I basked in that for some time. When Linda Ellerbee said As Dog Is My Witness "bit me with the first paragraph and never let go," my wife was actually impressed with me for the first time in some years. When Lee Child sent in a blurb that began, "Funny? Of course," well, that was more than enough.
But I'm not including those simply because I like to name drop (although that is certainly part of it). Read each one, or at least the portion I gave you. Each is well written, has some relevance to the book and gives the potential reader some information he/she/it might not have had. Those are nicely crafted blurbs. Doesn't hurt that they were contributed by very good writers.
I will not cite bad blurbs from my books (or anyone else's) because I don't think there were any on mine, and I have no desire to smear someone who went out of the way to praise another author's work. That is noble, it is generous, it is selfless and it is above all nice. The worst blurb ever written was a very lovely gesture. None should be denigrated.
My personal favorite blurb of all time that was not on a book of my own comes from a volume of essays by the "humorist" (which is Pretentious for "funny writer") S. J. Perelman, and it came from an idol of Perelman's, Groucho Marx. Perelman would later write for Groucho and his brothers in the movies and report that "anybody who ever worked on any picture for the Marx Brothers said he would rather be chained to a galley oar and lashed at ten-minute intervals until the blood spurted from his frame than ever work for those sons of bitches again."
That wasn't the blurb.
Before he worked for Groucho, Perelman saw to it that his book was sent to the great comedian in search of a jacket blurb. And he got one.
It read, "From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
Beat that.
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