My Publisher’s Weekly review came in today. I’ve heard one writer say that if you believe your good reviews, you’ve got to believe your bad ones as well. And I have another writer friend who doesn’t read his reviews at all. I guess I’m just not that evolved yet — maybe someday. So, since the reviews page of the site isn’t up yet, I’m going to post the whole thing here; besides, as PW reviews go, I’m quite pleased about this one:

Dolby (The Trouble Boy) puts his own prep school experience to fine use in his second novel, which chronicles the travails of Ethan Whitley, the smart but insecure 17-year-old son of Stanford professors, who spends his senior (or “sixth form”) year at Berkley Academy, an elite co-ed boarding school in Massachusetts. Todd Eldon, a classmate who befriends Ethan, introduces him to a world of wealth and privilege. Such moments as the awestruck Ethan’s reaction to Todd’s family’s Manhattan apartment (“was that really a Miró, he wondered, in the living room?”) and how Todd’s nouveau riche mother, an author of popular fiction, decorates the place for Christmas are beautifully observed. Hannah McClellan, a progressive English teacher with a mysterious past, also cultivates Ethan. As the story darkens, the reader expects the axe to fall at any moment. That it never does may annoy some, but most will be gratified that kind fate alone saves the principal characters from their own foolishness. This isn’t a novel for people who want to know what a prep school is like; rather, it’s a reminder how close disaster always is when you’re 17. (Jan.)

I love the line about disaster being close when you’re 17. Echoes a little bit of the Rimbaud that Hannah rather oddly pushes on Ethan at Christmas.

Back in 2005, at the request of the Virtual Book Tour, I created a music playlist for The Trouble Boy on the music blog Largehearted Boy. Since then, over a hundred more playlists have been posted by such authors as Bret Easton Ellis, Dana Spiotta, and Tom Bissell. The editor at Largehearted Boy, David Gutowski, marked the occasion with a posting last week.

On the site, I’ll soon post music playlists for The Trouble Boy (already up on iTunes, just click the link on this site’s homepage) and The Sixth Form.