Literary Clusterfucks 2013

I think defending her right to push this morally abhorrent memoir, even if stemming from a place of understanding and sympathy, ultimately leads you to an untenable ethical position.

Why are you acting like her publisher is being strong armed into pushing her book?

there are subtle variances in the realm of understanding and sympathy that don't involve specifically defending her right to push this memoir.

It seems like the CW itt is that she can't be expected to not push this memoir because the advance was a lot of money.

book publisher wants to sell book shocker.

I'm not surprised that the book publisher wants to sell the book. I'm surprised that Valdes is willing to go along with it.

Basically what you are saying is that she should have destroyed herself professionally in the way you approve of rather than the way she chose without knowing the details of what went down between her and her publisher that is generating all of this weird doublespeak.

It seems like the CW itt is that she can't be expected to not push this memoir because the advance was a lot of money.

― Mordy, Thursday, January 10, 2013 4:45 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm 1000% sure that this is the position of nobody in this thread

this is like her eighth book. it's not going to destroy her career.

Is it more likely that she is doing her press tour for her book because she still thinks it's awesome or because a VP of Legal is telling her she has to or she will get sued into oblivion and she hasn't retained counsel yet

tbh i think it's very unlikely that the VP of Legal is threatening to sue her for writing that she was abused. it's certainly possible, but would be such a huge PR fuckup for the publisher if it got out.

Penguin Threatened to Sue Author for Saying She Was Abused

^ this is not a headline that Gotham/Penguin wants to see

Abuse is not an excuse for perpetuating abuse, which is what pushing this book on her audience is doing.

yeah man...it's like she's committing genocide with her dishonesty

A little more:

http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/alisa_valdes_anti_feminist_romance_not_so_romantic/

In an email, Valdes tells me that, although she doesn’t dispute the truth of what she originally wrote in the post, she removed it at the request of her publisher. Speaking of her publisher, in the blog post in question, a cached version of which is still searchable online, she claims that her publisher has “essentially shunned” her as a result of the inconvenient real-world demise of her written fairy tale and writes, “I am deeply wounded by the stonewalling from my editor, as wounded as I ever was when the cowboy did it to me.” (I have yet to get a response from her publicist at Gotham Books to an email request for comment.)

all this becomes much easier to take if you come at it with the perspective that everyone is abhorrent from jump

In an email, she tells me, ”The relationship with the cowboy was rocky for most of 2012, with moments of great beauty and talk of marriage, to moments of tremendous and painful conflict.” She describes it as “on-again, off-again,” but it finally ended in September of last year. “I do think the relationship continued longer than it should have in part because I wanted to make it at least to the publication date,” she explains. “I eventually had to recognize that this was not a good reason to force something that didn’t work.”

It’s not that she’s entirely changed her mind, though. She considers herself a “Difference Feminist” (i.e., she sees men and women as having equal worth but as “not being necessarily the same or having the same abilities in all things”), and maintains that the cowboy helped her “to embrace my own female-ness in a way I had been trained to subsume.” She ended the email with a nod to her alleged abuser, “As the cowboy often said, there is the way things are, and there is the way we would like for things to be,” she tells me. “The only one that matters, ultimately, is how things are. We might not like it, and it might not be fair, but that doesn’t make any of it less true.” She has a new boyfriend now and, she says, he “wrote the cowboy a thank you note, for having ‘tamed’ me and made me a better woman, which I totally agree with.”

I think it is entirely possible to think her promo tour is nagl without letting either the publisher or the cowboy off the hook.

Which is to say, strongo otm.

It's true that its 100% inconceivable that her publisher could be like the Catholic Church or Penn State or any other massive institution when faced with a reputation-destroying scandal

right now no-one looks v good at all. wish there was some more clarity here, hope it comes out in the coming weeks. not that life ever gets tied up in a bow but I'd like to understand more of what went down and how etc

or what strongo said

it's not 100% inconceivable but it's Penguin. you think they've never dealt with an author promo crisis before? xxp

I gotta say, this bit:

“I do think the relationship continued longer than it should have in part because I wanted to make it at least to the publication date."

also not totally a great comparison being as how in the catholic church / penn state metaphor that makes valdes a pedophile.

which I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree withwhich I totally agree with

wow this thread

emily and elmo totally otm though at a certain point i had to start reading

oh great she's a pedophile too

i am resisting the urge to tell ilxors i think are probably decent people to fuck off, but some of you have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

lol i had to stop reading, i meant; i'm a little het up

Is it more likely that she is doing her press tour for her book because she still thinks it's awesome or because a VP of Legal is telling her she has to or she will get sued into oblivion and she hasn't retained counsel yet

― autistic boy is surprisingly good at basketball (silby), Thursday, January 10, 2013 6:54 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is it? I suspect it's more complicated on both sides. It's possible that she wants to sell the book despite her desire to make public what she published in the post. Find a way to tell the whole story and make money in the process. Why not? That doesn't make her any less of a victim of abuse. Her post seemed to be 50% shaking her fist at her publisher for giving her "the cold shoulder". Who knows if a lawsuit is even being threatened? Why are we taking sides over who is the villain, between her and her publisher? We're making stuff up based on the most palatable narrative. They both wanted to publish this POS book.

all this becomes much easier to take if you come at it with the perspective that everyone is abhorrent from jump

― let's go do some crimes (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Thursday, January 10, 2013 7:03 PM (42 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup.

yup.

wow this whole thing

what a sad fascinating totally unsurprising story

What I mean by this is that while I set out to write a memoir that was a love letter to a man I was deeply in love with, a man who challenged me in myriad ways, a man who changed my life profoundly, a man I respected and honored greatly at the time, what I actually wrote was a handbook for women on how to fall in love with a manipulative, controlling, abusive narcissist.

i mean

also as far as all the detectiving going on itt one point that it seems is being under appreciated is that she was already beefing w her publisher before the now deleted come clean blog post, what exactly was that about

she said it was bc they were disappointed that she broke up with the guy before the book came to press

That's always seemed like a hazard of the stunt memoir -- you sell the idea of having the experience while you're still having it (or even before you've had it), and then it has to live up to whatever your pitch was.

yeah i guess they couldve been on ellen or w/e together displaying their superior post feminist love

I have learned just how fine the line is between being an alpha male and being something else altogether.

also on a side note can people finally just stop it w this shit already, an alpha male is like not a real thing

excuse me! my mother was an alpha male

apologies not trying to start a race war

http://lhslive.com/images/alpha.jpg

lol @ jho. hi jho!

sup hs how u doin

ime alpha males are more like zephyr males or w/e

estela vmic otm as per usual ; )

I have learned just how fine the line is between being an alpha male and being something else altogether.

also on a side note can people finally just stop it w this shit already, an alpha male is like not a real thing

― lag∞n, Friday, 11 January 2013 01:58 (1 hour ago) Permalink

excuse me! my mother was an alpha male

― let's bitch about our stupid, annoying co-ilxors (darraghmac), Friday, 11 January 2013 01:59 (1 hour ago) Permalink

apologies not trying to start a race war

― lag∞n, Friday, 11 January 2013 02:01 (1 hour ago) Permalink

amazing

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literary racewars 2013