To the Editor:

Imagine my good luck in coming across the following sentence in a recent issue of the Spectator, the British literary magazine: “It is disgraceful that a literary editor should dishonor his position by printing abusive and tendentious material in the guise of a review.” Oh, how apt. That wasn’t a review that Gary Indiana wrote of my book, “Another City, Not My Own” (Book Review, Jan. 4). That was a hate letter. As you know, Indiana, whom I have never met, has previously attacked me in the most mocking manner in his book called “Resentment: A Comedy,” a book I understand from friends at The Times you greatly admire. Resentment, of course, is the key word here. Like pus, it seeps its way out of every sentence he writes about me.

I am aware that my writing enrages a small segment of the public--people like Leslie Abramson, Johnnie Cochran and an assortment of zealots for the guilty, into which category Indiana fits, despise me. What is so distasteful is not Indiana’s review. What is distasteful is that you chose him to write it, knowing of his hostility toward me. More succinctly put, you set me up to be demolished. I can remember when literary editors were gentlemen. I can remember when there was fairness in assigning people to review books.

However, I am happy to still be in the No. 3 slot on your own bestseller list, eight weeks after I went on your list at No. 1 and stayed there for four weeks.

Dominick Dunne

Steve Wasserman replies:

Authors are often unhappy with their reviews. Indiana’s own novel was savaged in these pages by Alexander Theroux. I am not aware of any animus toward Dunne on the part of Indiana.

Finally, let Dr. Johnson have the last word. To an author who once complained about an attack on one of his books, Dr. Johnson advised: “Nay, Sir, do not complain. It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.”