MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM: My third novel, Flesh and Blood, received a withering, truly venomous review from Michiko Kakucani in the daily New York Times. It was, in a sense, my worst fear come true: a devastating review that was read by millions of people. I'm not prone to vomiting, as Hellman was, though I had a hard time with that review, not because I worried that it might be true, but because I felt so publicly humiliated. Most of the writers I respect live continually on the edge of various convictions that they are not very good at what they do, that they have simply fooled enough of the people enough of the time, and that sooner or later they will be exposed as hacks or frauds. It is, to me at least, an inconvenient but necessary attitude-too much confidence, too much conviction about one's own virtuosity, seems dangerous (though of course too little is dangerous too). I survived that review, I kept writing, and in so doing seem to have crossed a line I'll never have to cross again. There's a perverse son of relief in seeing your own worse fears realized, at least if it doesn't do you in. You understand, after that, that they can hurt you bur they can't kill you. You're not as timid ever again. You go on.