A Novel Approach: Fictional Blurbs

Authors often receive requests from their brethren for book-jacket endorsements. But seldom are the notes as heavy-handed as one received by Long Beach mystery writer Wendy Hornsby (“A Hard Light”).

The sender, a professor in the South, said he realized Hornsby was busy and might not have time to actually read his first book, a crime novel.

So he sent along three pages of potential blurbs for Hornsby to choose from. All she had to do was check the appropriate box. “They [the blurbs] sounded as though they had been ripped off every other book jacket,” Hornsby said. “There was, ‘Roller coaster of a novel,’ and ‘Rock ‘em, sock ‘em,’ and ‘Scott Turow Meets Stephen King,’ among others.”

Hornsby didn’t bother to reply. A few months later, she received an apologetic letter from the professor. He said that while authors of articles in his circle do provide blurbs to reviewers, he had learned that such was not the case in the mystery book biz.

The professor’s field? Legal ethics.

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LATEST Y2K SCARE? Paula Van Gelder sent along an eerie shot but assured me it was a sign at a store’s liquidation sale, not a sign of things to come (see photo).

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BEACH BUOYS: Bestowing more recognition on the Southland, the syndicated column “News of the Weird” cited a July article by The Times’ David Reyes about a lifeguard shortage in Huntington Beach. “Weird” author Chuck Shepherd was particularly amused that, among the would-be lifeguards who flunked one tryout in Surf City, six had to be rescued during a half-mile swim.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053 and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com.