Literary Clusterfucks 2013

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

From Deborah Levy.

Proletarian Zen was a short story written in my early 20’s and published in 1986.
Context: I was asked to write a satire about stereotypes in fiction.
I totally understand it is offensive & I got this wrong & you are right to call it out.

— Ambit Magazine (@ambitmagazine) April 26, 2021

Can’t these apologies ever be along the lines of “Jesus Christ, what the fuck was wrong with me”?

preferably was/is actually

I don’t know, I just don’t get an actual sense of shame from “I hear you, I see you.”

"I did not give permission for this story to be reprinted in 2019" is a bit odd, although maybe she doesn't control the copyright for some published works? Anyway there'll surely be another fustercluck along soon, never fear, probably involving an old-timey SF writer and/or the Hugo Awards.

https://embedded.substack.com/p/a-celebrated-feminist-facebook-group

no way url slugs

lol

Can’t these apologies ever be along the lines of “Jesus Christ, what the fuck was wrong with me”?

Ehhh not a comment on this particular infraction but the public apology has become such a cliché and punchline at this point that I doubt it can be pulled off in a way that won't read as insincere to most people. "Jesus Christ what the fuck was wrong with me?" could easily tip over into performative hand-wringing and making-it-all-about-yourself for instance.

Meanwhile it seems Philip Roth's biographer is a creep or worse

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Wednesday, 21 April 2021 18:16 (one week ago) link

I didn't think I cared about this story, but I ended up reading the two pieces on Slate (one first-person account, one investigative reporting) and they were both so powerfully written, I was just absolutely gutted by the end.

Ugh, just glanced at that. I can't even. Did you ever read the one about the Horace Mann teacher?

Does the Believer guy bathing in a mesh shirt on a Zoom call count as a clusterfuck?

clusterducky you’re the one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWCEG6lV0ek

maybe there's more going on, but the believer guy seems more foolish and unfortunate than anything else

otoh maybe a guy who's in so much pain that he has to take work meetings in the tub yet doesn't consider wearing swim trunks shouldn't really be in charge of anything

ah

https://desertnote-97667.medium.com/open-letter-regarding-joshua-shenk-la-times-and-unlv-cf0f515015b9

I don't understand how it makes sense to say both "the exposure on the Zoom call may not have been intentional" and "we view it as an act of sexual harassment".

JRN, sexual harassment does not depend on the intention of the harasser, but on whether the people consider the behavior unwelcome. However unintentional the bathtub incident may have been, it was behavior of a sexual nature that was unwelcome.

Why was he in the bathtub while on a call?

I think indecent exposure, accidentally, via Zoom is possible, and I don’t think it would be sexual harassment then. Like what if you forget you were in a waiting room and the host suddenly lets you into the meeting? Or you thought you signed off but didn’t. The app runs in the background, behind your other apps.

In this case he was already naked on the call which seems weird.

His explanation is that he has fibromyalgia and was soaking in the tub to manage pain. I'm not sure that's being challenged, as such.

Or rather it's being viewed sceptically but no alternate account of events has been publicised.

I understand that you can harass without intending to--but can you harass via an action you didn't even intend to perform? If a boss accidentally tripped and fell into an employee's lap, could that count as sexual harassment? That seems to be the suggestion in the open letter. I don't get it, the response seems plenty strong without it.

That letter pretty clearly says "Sure, this one thing might have been accidental, but he's just the kind of asshole who'd do something like this on purpose, and you better believe we've got some stories we could tell."

^^^ that was my take, seems like employees he's treated like shit over the years are all too happy to put this incident into an overall pattern of behavior

the Open Letter is suggesting the harassment was because he had a pattern of being negligent and showing disregard for the staffers, suggesting that he cares little enough about the sensitivities of his co-workers that he wouldn't take precautions to prevent the possibility of something like that even happening (like, perhaps attending the call on audio only, or ....not being in the tub).

but with that being said, it is really fucking easy to fuck up web cam by accident. I had a new laptop once and hit a button in WebEx by mistake and it flipped my camera on while I was shirtless (I immediately ducked under the table and threw a shirt on and flipped camera off).

I teach classes regularly and yes, on days when I haven't been required to use web cam, I always make sure I'm attired for that reason. but I think "this was a freak accident" is probably likely.

or what unperson and jon said. dammit, took too long to rewrite the message

Having worked for a couple of years at a small lit magazine of Believer-y proportions, edited by a total asshole who made everyone's lives miserable, the open letter rings completely accurate to me.

I guess the point is, some freak accidents are less freaky than others

Yeah one rather obvious reading would be "it may have been unintentional, but given our other experiences, we doubt it". So never mind what I said before.

I'm not sure it's even that - it seems close to 'it may have been unintentional but only someone who doesn't care about their staff's wellbeing could have put themselves in a position to make that mistake in the first place', which idk.

Yeah. "I forgot to be careful" is only a hair from "I couldn't be bothered to be careful".

Not having a shirt on and having one's camera come on by accident is very different from what this guy did, y'all. He literally was on a call, naked. Either he doesn't give a shit or shouldn't have been on the call because he was in too much pain.

Wondering if there was any benefit to this meeting being a Zoom call instead of a conference call by phone. Dude could still have a job if he’d said that he had to be in the tub because of his medical condition and so maybe a call would be better, or else had kept the camera off for the call for the same reason.

Hmm x2

The article did not quote anyone else who had been present, and so there was little room for Shenk’s exposure to be interpreted as anything more than an unfortunate mistake. Staffers were incensed. “This article is all he needs to get himself another job where he can endanger people,” a colleague wrote to me. This was the first we were hearing about a bathtub, and several other details in the article seemed to be acting as convenient distractions; for instance, the “mesh shirt” Shenk was supposedly wearing had appeared on screen to be a normal-looking white t-shirt.

https://defector.com/whats-happening-at-the-believer-is-about-more-than-just-a-zoom-incident/

yeah I'm inclined to believe his employees' account, pretty fucked how many journalistic publications spiked the employee comments.

Skyhorse Publishing has picked up the Philip Roth biography. Check out their website to see the other fine, fine books they publish...

http://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/

I think I've got one of their Robert F Jones books. Since when did they become associated with Night Shade Books? I love Night Shade.

They publish all sorts of stuff, literally no filter