In 1980, upon the publication of her "New Yorker" colleague Pauline Kael's collection "When the Lights Go Down", she published an 8,000-word review in "The New York Review of Books" that dismissed the book as "jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless", arguing that Kael's post-1960s work contained "nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility", and faulting her "quirks mannerisms", including Kael's repeated use of the "bullying" imperative and rhetorical question. The piece, which stunned Kael and quickly became infamous in literary circles, was described by "Time" magazine as "the New York literary Mafia['s bloodiest case of assault and battery in years."