Sympathy for the Vampire Lady

R. K. Milholland offers some perspective on Anne Rice's turning on her critics.

I just don't think it's a good idea to go off on people for reviewing you. No matter what you say, you'll look wrong. Countless people were telling me, "Anne Rice went batshit at her readers!" But when I read it, I didn't get that vibe, but people are going to say it automatically because she had the audacity to address her critics. It's easier to write her off as overreacting without really looking at what she's saying.

Well, when I went to Amazon, a huge chunk of the customer reviews had gone missing (six months worth, to be exact), but I found a copy of her statement. And, sure, it's not quite "batshit" to tell people who hated your book, "[Y]ou aren't even reading it. You are projecting your own limitations on it." But it certainly is pretentious--as are subsequent declarations like:

...I have no intention of allowing any editor ever to distort, cut, or otherwise mutilate sentences that I have edited and re-edited, and organized and polished myself. I fought a great battle to achieve a status where I did not have to put up with editors making demands on me, and I will never relinquish that status. For me, novel writing is a virtuoso performance. It is not a collaborative art.

Now, telling your critics they can "be assured of the utter contempt I feel for you," that might qualify as batshit, depending on whether or not spittle flew out of her mouth when she wrote it. On the other hand, if she said it dressed like a goth, and with a European accent, she might be able to lure some of those fans back into the fold.