a. is dead wrong about

b. didn't understand

c. didn't read

d. never received

my book. Where does he get off saying

a. "She writes like her hands were stapled to an enraged bull."

b. "She writes like she never completed third grade."

c. "She writes like a 747 landing on boulders."

d. "She writes just like Herman Melville, only without the whale."

It simply isn't true, as your reviewer suggested, that

a. I "learned creative writing from SurePass University or by correspondence courses mailed to the author from a post office box number."

b. I "wouldn't know a character from a sewing machine."

c. My "material has been around since the Upper Paleolithic Era."

d. "A box score has more originality and pathos than this author's plots."

And, it is particularly outrageous for your reviewer to indicate that

a. "There's some bad DNA somewhere on this author's family tree."

b. "Bulwer Lytton once wrote a book just like this one, but, by God, he threw it out."

c. "The author should have taken a machete to the galleys.

d. "The author better hope for a great many appearances on talk shows, because she sure can't write."

The lowest blow, however, and what proves the utter lack of professionalism by your so-called reviewer, was his statement

a. "I didn't get past page two, but it only takes one sniff to tell when the milk is spoiled."

b. "I read parts of this book aloud to some friends, and they all thought it was written by an ostrich on LSD."

c. "Even the quality of this book's binding is rotten: the darts I threw at it penetrated the thick prose and then fell limply to the floor in my office."

d. "There's going to be a lot of landfills pushed past capacity by this trash."

Finally, I have consulted my attorney, and she feels that your reviewer went far beyond the license permitted to critics and it is actionable that he wrote:

a. "I returned part of my salary because you couldn't pay me to finish this book."

b. "I tried to burn my copy, but the writing style is so damp and slimy that I couldn't ignite the mess."

c. "Thank God this book will die a natural death by virtue of its own diseased and tormented sentences, and nobody will ever read it. And I'm speculating, as well, about the author's health."

d. "My dog wrote a better novel on the fire hydrant across the street."