A bounty is being offered over a negative book review? Somehow, it's not surprising for anyone who's spent time in the trenches of the book review world. Most disappointed authors, of course, still follow the age-old tradition of sucking it up and complaining to their friends. They bear in mind Paul Fussell's sage advice in the essay "Being Reviewed": At all costs, avoid the ABM -- author's big mistake -- of writing a nasty letter complaining about a review of your own work. "If the bad review has made him look like a ninny," Fussell says about the type of prickly author who can't stomach criticism, "his letter of outrage makes him look like an ass."

But there's still an enduring category of author who feels that a bad review of his or her book is no mere difference of opinion, however ill-informed and wrongheaded the reviewer's take may be. It's an injustice that must be remedied -- a "shocking and irresponsible" (to quote the bounty-offering P.W. reviewee) wrong that they must personally right.

Recently, first-time memoirist Deborah Copaken Kogan got a mixed review from a prominent critic at a print magazine. After the review was published she called him, twice, at home, even though his number is unlisted. He declined to engage in a personal conversation and suggested that she send a letter with her concerns to the magazine. A fat envelope addressed to the reviewer arrived at the publication's offices. (Judging by other letters Kogan has sent to other book-review editors, the missive was a classic ABM, the kind that details disagreements with the review under the guise of "concern" over the publication's reputation for accuracy; we'll never know, though, since, after having the first sentence read to him and judging it inapropriately personal, he had the letter thrown out.)

Last month, a similarly dissatisfied author peppered Salon with e-mails filled with vague references to "legal" recourse. The author took issue with the fact that the Salon reviewer characterized the sources used in his nonfiction book as less than stellar. The quality of a source can be a matter of opinion. But to the kind of author who considers even adjectives like "boring" and "tendentious" to be inaccuracies when applied to his book, the questioning of a source's dependability seems like a flagrant error in fact and a violation of his rights.

The New York media and publishing world is notoriously clubby. People who write books, people who publish books and people who write book reviews often know each other and socialize together. This can foster an atmosphere of paranoia about reviewers' "motives," as former New York magazine book critic Walter Kirn recently lamented in the New York Times Book Review: "No one who has any stake in the issue will ever believe that a negative review was the work of a lone gunman. No, there must be a plot. A web of evil."

But this same atmosphere can also lull some well-connected first-time authors into a false sense of security as they await their book's publication. For these authors, the first, cold splash of negative criticism comes as a particular shock since they're used to soaking in a warm bath of peer approval.

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"