February 24 Expert Witness: Gossip

Behind Every J.K. Rowling Defense, Arm-Licking, Altman’s Secret Finest Hour

BEHIND EVERY J.K. ROWLING DEFENSE

I think this might be the right place to lay this egg.

I was inspired to tell-all, now that the Onion has made fun of the Times “defense” of author JK Rowling, authored by their new op-ed columnist, Pamela Paul.

PP used to be the editor of the Times’ Book Review supplement. Before that, she was their features editor, and Children’s books editor. She was also married to another of the Times op-ed columnists, Bret Stephens.

This is my saga:

More than a decade ago, I was a cheerful new contributing critic to the New York Times Book Review.

I was recruited by one of the staff editors, to review a single title, and since that went well, I got other assignments. It was a “feather in my cap.”

I didn’t do it for the money — I think at the time it was around $150 for a short review— but because I felt like part of a national book discussion. This was before widespread internet — every avid book reader was reading the Review. I would talk to people on the city bus about my latest story!

Best of all, even though my first assignment was a “sex” title, my editor saw I was perceptive. I wanted to discuss a zillion topics, so my assignments grew broader. He’d consult with me about other prospects.

Then the axe fell.

One day, I was visiting NYC and the two of us hit the Times’ terrible cafeteria, to have our annual chat. (I lived in California).

My editor changed the subject from the food. “I fear for you — and don’t ask, I’m going to retire; it’s the last straw. They’re going to make Pamela Paul head of Review features, and you, Susie Bright, will never see another assignment.”

“What?”

“You should see what she did to the children’s section. She’s a hardcore Dworkinite and a dedicated anti-communist.”

“Come on, man!”

“Oh, I’m not joking. She knows your politics and . . . it’s over.”

Everything he said came true.

Paul was on a lengthy campaign. She testified in 2005 to the Senate Judiciary Committee about the perils of “porn addiction.” She’s practically the architect of the term. If you read her testimony you’ll find all the trademarks of barely-disguised homophobia, sex-loathing, traditional role-mongering, and “nuclear family is our bedrock” paternalistic faith. —The old “men are beasts and bourgeois wives must hold the leash.”

Here’s the deal: she’s not the exception. Every critic over-40 in the contemporary trans-bashing universe had an earlier incarnation as porn fighters and a sex-calamitizers. They’ve been hysterical about “going to the bathroom” FOREVER. They’re the kind of people who called the police in the 1980s because there was a butch with short hair minding her own business in a stall. Yeah, I remember that era. The Pamela’s were the puritanical busybodies active in the 19th century suffragette movement. And often, more often than anyone specifies, they subscribed to anti-labor views. They specifically refuted socialist ideas. Take note. They believe everyone decent should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. And if they can’t, then rescue-charity must be applied, firmly.

This feminist fight/split has been going on forever (I like to revisit the Pankhurst sister split). Yes, I know the nuance and devil are in the details. Still, it galls me that the class issues are not commonly spelled out.

There will be future critical issues about people’s intimate lives. And the PP’s of the world will be on the shit side of those, too.

On a personal note, to my fellow writers: Yes, it’s game-changing when the new boss cuts you. I couldn’t get work writing book reviews for years.

I had been a critic for many moons before the NYT, but that editorial shift reverberated throughout Manhattan, and the doors shut click-click-click.

I was only one writer. But multiply that decision by many, and you see how the tenor of book criticism in mainstream periodicals changed. The book review got “straighter.” AIDS had already wiped out so many of us. The NEA obliteration over gay art was another bellweather. Every nonprofit I worked with, like the San Francisco gay film festival, lost their funding, in one stroke because of lavender-herrings, sex-baiting with uglier undertones.

The Congressional hearing stage becomes baroque with corrupt Christian pantomimes. That’s their act.

Here was my special moment at the Capitol: When James Hormel was nominated for an Ambassador to Luxembourg by President Clinton.. there was a Republican backlash: “We cannot have a HOMOSEXUAL representing our country!”

What did that have to do with me?

Well, the GOP caucus, led by Jesse Helms, photocopied pages from my first book, (no royalties paid!) and passed them out in the Congressional chamber, as an illustration of “This is what big gay James Hormel keeps in his library!”

It’s laughable when it happens, and at the same time, you watch your work disappear from shelves. My book entered hundreds of new “banned” lists.

I don’t know why people think “banning” helps an author’s career. It’s disastrous apart from the couple names who make a headline. You are disappeared. Salmon Rushdie is the exception - and he would be the first to tell you that, too.

The bigger publishing wipeout of the 00’s obscured my personal blacklisting. Newspapers and mags faced such economic disaster since those days. Most of the publications I worked for, were closed, missed payrolls, cut their freelance payments to crackers, or became a shadow publication online. The scene I used to work for doesn’t exist anymore.

What does exist in the paid newspaper/magazine world is far more conservative and naïve about sexual politics, and quite blindered about what could be possible in literary debate.

I just looked back and re-read a story I wrote about Dorothy Allison’s book, SKIN. That kind of criticism, consideration, hasn’t been published in the NYTBR since— I don’t know when. From anyone.

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ARMPIT QUESTIONS AT AUTHOR EVENTS

Sometimes the Q&A part of an author book chat can be disconcerting. I love cartoonist Roz Chast’s take on it:

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/sketchbook/who-wants-to-know-roz-chast

One of my fond weird memories of “questions at a book-signing” was a young woman in Michigan, on campus. She asked if she could lick my armpit. Although that sounds alarming today, it was a simpler time. She made me laugh and I agreed.

I asked if we could photograph the moment. She was extraordinarily beautiful, and in a shot that could have looked “mentally ill,” actually had a very Italian Renaissance vibe to it in the final portrait. She was so earnest.

I think this was Ann Arbor, UofM. If anyone can find me that photo — I will frame it!

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THE LOST 1978 NOIR YOU WANT AND NEED

While I was licking my wounds over the poor release of “Marlowe” last week, a friend turned me onto to the most satisfying “secret” 1978 noir film that hardly anyone has seen!

The cast and producers are golden, the vibe is incredible, the photography, breathtaking.

Take a look at these names: directed by Alan Rudolph with Robert Altman, Tak Fujimoto was the DP. Starring Geraldine Chaplin in her best role, (yes, daughter of Charlie Chaplin and granddaughter of Eugene O’Neill) Anthony Perkins, Moses Gunn, Jeff Goldblum debut, Berry Berenson’s debut, and original music by Alberta Hunter!

“Remember My Name” was never released on video, DVD, had a tiny theatrical show before disappearing. The licensing was held up for decades because of the music rights. Now, to everyone’s amazement, it’s “free” on Amazon Prime!

Here’s a review from another delighted critic.

The ending is a little weird. —Just my temperature weird. Great San Francisco “just out of Folsom Women’s Prison” zeitgeist. I can’t stop remembering its vignettes.

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