Is literary criticism getting too nasty? That was the topic at BookExpo in Chicago. “It seemed debatable — at least as many people seem to think that literary critics are more often too kind, or at least too polite, than not — but that didn’t stop one prominent book critic from bashing another’s brains in, figuratively speaking, for being too negative.” Critic Carlin Romano and Dale Peck sparred, with Roman railing at length against what he called Peck’s “savagery” and “shrieking denunciations,” dismissing his work as “performance art.”