Barnes’ debut Suffer Them to Come to Light travels where most authors fear to tread. The narrative delves into a wondrous story, horrific in its violent imagery and yet breathtakingly nuanced and satisfying. Where a reader might doubt the value of the explicit portrayal of insanity and life views delivered via his colorful characters’ language, in the end you are left understanding the necessity of ‘going there.’

The novel is a masterpiece. This reviewer will be holding his breath for his next release. Hurry up Mr. Barnes, your fans await your genius.

Even a year previous, with his second book, Shitley remained on William’s side. Although a little harsh, his article gave hope that the literary world still loved him. Every author had a bad book, the one that hadn’t taken off. Authors were human and sometimes they just didn’t quite hit the mark. Or the readers missed the point, which is what William presumed.

That second book’s review from Shitley hurt, although it hadn’t stopped him. He’d even told himself to treasure the bad reviews because they kept him grounded.

New York Times Book Review

HIDDEN IN THE SHADOWS by William Barnes

Reviewed by Anthony Shadley September 15, 2013

Call me disappointed and color this critic annoyed with William Barnes’ follow up to Suffer Them to Come to Light. I adored his debut, but now struggle to imagine how an author can fall so far, with such an alarming, excruciating fail.

Where his previous literary masterpiece scaled the heights of eloquence and imagination, this book falls from these same statures with boorish and clunky prose to land with little grace.

Here’s to not holding my breath for the next! Mr. Barnes, what’s left of your fan base awaits your comeback.

Yeah, blah, blah, blah, William thought at the time. You’ll see, Shadley. They would all see with the release of his next novel.

So he’d imagined. He absolutely, utterly believed that, and believed in himself until this third book. He’d never for a second thought this would be his last. But that’s what frightened the hell out of him. His come-back might very well be his get-going missive.

After the negative reviews of Flying Toward the Sun, all mimicking Shitley—because everyone paid attention to the Times—his books would be lucky to stay a month on the retail shelves. Some parts of Shitley’s rant had already proven true. Damn him!

The publishers had canceled his contract.

“Not to publishable standard” was the term in the official looking letter for his fourth submitted manuscript. The writer from their legal department quoted from his contract—which he’d never read, that’s why you have agents. It contained confusing clauses, sub-articles and gobbledygook worse than anything he had ever written.

What they meant was “get lost.” We’ve fallen out of love. No more free lunches, tours or signings. No publicists will call anymore to check if you’ll be ready for the limousine arriving to whisk you to an interview at this station or that studio.