The restaurant critic S. Irene Virbila, who has preserved her anonymity over the last sixteen years of reviewing food for the LA Times, was outed by the manager at Red Medicine, who reported on his Tumblr:
Our purpose for posting this is so that all restaurants can have a picture of her and make a decision as to whether or not they would like to serve her. We find that some her reviews can be unnecessarily cruel and irrational, and that they have caused hard-working people in this industry to lose their jobs—we don’t feel that they should be blind-sided by someone with no understanding of what it takes to run or work in a restaurant. [emphasis mine]
I have to admit that I sympathize with the Red Medicine owners — there is a small percentage (a very, very small percentage) of book reviewers about whom you might say the same thing in regards to writing a novel. But you have to submit to the flagellation. Par for the course to get reviewed, even if the review isn’t fair.
And remember back when all book reviewing was done anonymously? At least you didn’t have to worry about severing relationships with other people in the industry back then. (Although The Believer has tried to bring it back — except with a twist).
