Literary Clusterfucks 2013

I mean that's what makes it a good burn!

Read one way, maybe, but the self clowning corncob nature of the rest of the meltdown kinda suggests more that she just wanted to express “my book will be taught in schools, I’ll show everybody” but didn’t think through what she was actually saying tbh

yeah pretty certain 'they' is referring to a different group of people than 'these assholes'

authors angry at getting 4 star reviews seems part of the same disease that makes legions of stans swoop down on reviewers for giving their faves' new album a 7.5 or 8.0

I had never heard of this person so I googled and her book is about being a cult survivor apparently

This was the detail that stuck with me, and how there doesn’t seem to be any consideration (on Twitter anyway) that this trauma could affect, say, how someone behaves when their work of several years becomes public. God help anyone who is, say, bipolar and has a Twitter account when that happens.

Any author or public figure who gives a shit about such things is a fool, imo. One of the best Goodreads reviews of one of my own works was accompanied by three stars. Who the fuck cares? It's a funneling site for Amazon.

This was the detail that stuck with me, and how there doesn’t seem to be any consideration (on Twitter anyway) that this trauma could affect, say, how someone behaves when their work of several years becomes public. God help anyone who is, say, bipolar and has a Twitter account when that happens.

I think it's clear by now that social media has a detrimental effect on everyone's mental health, but when the inciting incident is "scornful anger at people for posting enthusiastic positive reviews of your work" I think it's kinda on the author to have the self-knowledge to hand the promotion keys to an assistant.

Roughly how many assistants do you think this first-time author has - like, to the nearest ten

Well apparently she has someone she pays to block ppl for her

As an East Coaster, I would like to see "youse" achieve the social acceptability of "y'all."

"yo knuckleheads" is preferred in enlightened settings

I knew a Scouse guy who'd say "alright, bollocks?" by way of collective greeting, clusterfuck solved

I doubt Hough has a legion of assistants, but one would hope there is an editor of publicist in her life that might help steer off Twitter for a few days, especially when she doubled down in some rather unfortunate ways.

I love Goodreads for recommending stuff based on the books I've read, found so much I'd otherwise have never heard of

As an East Coaster, I would like to see "youse" achieve the social acceptability of "y'all."

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, April 22, 2021 9:23 AM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Why stop there? Just go with "yinz"!

one would hope there is an editor of publicist in her life that might help steer off Twitter for a few days

Judging by the amount she (and other writers) tweet each day, it seems twitter has replaced alcohol as the author's vice

(ha, just noticed my post could have used an editor)

Roughly how many assistants do you think this first-time author has - like, to the nearest ten.

If having a social media presence is important to her success, she can afford to pay someone for it. If it isn't, then she can just keep her account private. This idea that people HAVE to be on every social media platform is enabling imo.

To be fair, I'm pretty sure all authors are encouraged to be very active on social media these days.

Yeah, of course they are, that's the pull of the whole thing. So it's important to know how to play the game or to refuse to play it.

I mean I hadn’t heard of the book until now so

If this was Mailer or Vidal, people would just laugh off calling Goodreads users nerds.

lol yeah no one's ever thought norman mailer was an insufferable asshole

I bet Ray Bradbury would have been a hilarious Twitter presence, that dude was all-time crabby

Yeah, her book is published by a Random House imprint and is getting a massive promotion -- there is assuredly a paid employee of RH who does this and only this who is giving her extremely fine-grained guidance right now (though whether she takes it is up to her, I don't think the publicists at the publishing houses actually ventriloquize tweets for the author)

My experience in the publishing industry is that "massive promotion" is way less than you think it would be, that publicists are way overworked and give the most cursory assistance to all but their 2-3 biggest name clients, and that authors are pretty much expected to whore themselves as hard as possible. She's gonna be mostly out there on her own, and the only time the publisher's gonna jump in with both feet is if/when it's time to say, "Oh, we had no idea she held Grotesque Opinion Z or had done X Horrible Thing — we disavow her and are pulling the book from shelves."

FWIW, I've followed her for a few years, happily pre-ordered the book and found it a very funny, sad and thoughtful collection of pieces; I think having it be individual essays rather than an autobiography as such was pretty smart. While I half saw things were a bit active these past few days I have such a busy Twitter feed to start with -- and have seen actual medical-intervention-level manic phases happen in real time on there -- I can't say I was noticing something terrible. I think I mostly saw a post about a donuts?

Seems like it was spread out over a few days and went through the typical process of tweets being deleted, her account going private, then coming back to double down.

I haven't read the book, but I did like her cable installer essay among other things, so at first I was willing to be somewhat charitable to it being a bit of a meltdown. But when she came back and started blocking accounts for people who just typed her name without @ing her and then doubled down on comparing unfavorable reviews to being sexually assaulted, it got a lot more difficult to take a charitable view towards the whole thing.

Yeah, it was the comparison to assault as well as some tweets from a few years ago (taking on someone with "bi" in their bio for appropriating "dyke," which she still considered an epithet) that seemed to escalate things.

Meanwhile (I know we're juggling dual clusterfucks here):

“personally flawed but brilliant writer who wants to control his image so badly that he chooses a caddish sycophant over an admiring but clear-eyed peer to write his bio, which bio then further damages his image after he’s dead” is so neatly ironic it could be early Roth

— Phil Christman🌹 (@phil_christman) April 22, 2021

Yes, I was going to say, this twist feels straight out of a Roth novel anyway.

I had only really started reading Roth in the last few years and was looking forward to a bio about him but, uh, I don't think it will be this one.

Roughly how many assistants do you think this first-time author has - like, to the nearest ten

Is the argument here that she is lying about hiring an assistant specifically to namesearch twitter and block randos talking about her? Because I agree that it is plausible, but disagree that it is a defence.

The anti-Hough tweeting seems a lot meaner than the actual Hough tweeting.

Most authors don't get assistants and publicists! What a ridiculous idea.

To be clear, when I say "publicist", I'm assuming there is someone at a Random House imprint who has at least some small role in publicizing works by their authors (as overworked as they may be).

She's not "most authors." Her book is a top-10 NYT bestseller this week. She doesn't have her own personal publicist but there is definitely a publicist at Penguin Random House paying close attention to her book.

Speaking as someone with a close friend who's put out four thrillers with multiple cover redesigns and big-name author pullquotes on the front -- he gets about £200/book for publicity to handle himself, which, pre-pandemic, was basically just a cheque for release party wine and crisps.

You don't need to be "given" assistants and publicists to have someone else do your social media.

Like this came up because someone suggested her behaviour was the result of trauma. It doesn't seem so wildly off the mark to me to suggest that if your mental health is in a condition where you react wrathfully at four star reviews, it would probably be a good idea to either outsource your social media presence or, y'know, just not post. The idea that it's a healthier state of affairs for the rest of the internet to tip-toe around this one writer because exposure just doesn't seem sustainable.

xposts

xp your friend should switch publishers

i love philip roth's novels. but i can't say i'm surprised that his biographer turned out to be a sex offender.

a thread

I declined to review Blake Bailey’s Philip Roth biography because of the grossly sexist review he gave to my Shirley Jackson bio (more below). This is clearly far from the worst of his crimes, but some of the things he wrote are indicative of a certain mindset. (1/x) https://t.co/fSE6L5Pdn9

— Ruth Franklin (@ruth_franklin) April 22, 2021

It doesn't seem so wildly off the mark to me to suggest that if your mental health is in a condition where you react wrathfully at four star reviews, it would probably be a good idea to either outsource your social media presence or, y'know, just not post.

You don’t know how you’re going to handle your first book getting reviewed until your first book gets reviewed.

I have a good friend who jumped into Goodreads when her first novel came out and tried replying to the bad reviews, and now (with her fourth book out last year) guides other writers away from Goodreads. But she had to learn that lesson.

I like Goodreads, but only for a way to keep track of what I've read.

The anti-Hough tweeting seems a lot meaner than the actual Hough tweeting.

Most authors don't get assistants and publicists! What a ridiculous idea.

― Chuck_Tatum, Thursday, April 22, 2021 12:46 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

she did a tweet comparing criticizing her to being a rape apologist iirc. that's pretty terrible

Literary clusterfucks are a bit like car wrecks, in that they invite gawkers, but they're much less consequential.

there doesn’t seem to be any consideration (on Twitter anyway) that this trauma could affect, say, how someone behaves when their work of several years becomes public

True, but who has time to research the lives of all the people who bumblefuck their way into your timeline and act like dickheads?

Deborah Levygate

A blatantly racist short story by Deborah Levy.

I shared this on ig yesterday and it has left many of us deeply upset for obvious reasons (though not obvious enough apparently for Deborah or Ambit).

Please keep sharing. Thank you. https://t.co/Xgv4m0fPFq

— Jasmine Lo 羅暄兒 (@017Jasmine) April 25, 2021

God that looks dire. Googling turns up a NYT review of a short story collection it was included in, which says:

'Proletarian Zen'' is a kind of extended and amusing dialect joke.

You don't say.

A resolution of sorts:

1. There have been a series of tweets since yesterday about Proletarian Zen by Deborah Levy, a short story that Ambit published in 1986. It should not have been reprinted in 2019.

— Ambit Magazine (@ambitmagazine) April 26, 2021

This Literary Clusterfuck is now concluded, thanks for watching.

there were a series of editorial mistakes for it being reprinted it in 2019 which we are exploring in house.

the story was laying next to a different story and we accidentally put it in the magazine while distracted by a particularly pleasant birdsong

Not quite a clusterfuck though. It generated around 10 tweets + immediate apology

perfunctory cluster makeout sesh at best