TURNING TRICKS?: Fishbowl vs. Cutler

It's been awhile since we checked in with the crew at Off the Shelf, the Boston Globe's lit blog. Yesterday, publishing reporter and all-around smarty guy David Mehegan posted a very funny rant about author's acknowledgment pages in fiction novels. He addressed it to the Department of Curmudgeon. Here's an excerpt:

I can't imagine Mark Twain writing, in "Huckleberry Finn," "I'd like to thank the Hannibal, Missouri, public library, which helped me refresh my memory on the technology of Mississippi steamboats," or George Eliot writing, at the end of "Middlemarch," "special thanks to Professor So-and-So, whose assistance was invaluable to me in my researches into the Reform Bill of 1832," or Fyodor Dostoevski writing, at the end of "Crime and Punishment," "my profuse thanks to Superintendent M-- of the St. Petersburg department of police for his generous advice on my treatment of investigatory methods." Or Dante: "I'd like to thank Virgil, for agreeing to be in my poem, and the various Islamic scholars who preserved the ancient writings that we in Europe now enjoy...."

Authors, I beg you to write your books and don't make me listen to your pencil-sharpening and page-turning and the "chunk" of the checkout machine at the library.

Mehegan, you're like the publishing industry's Andy Rooney! So adorable. Somebody should give you your own cable-access show. Which reminds us, that Andy Rooney event at the Brattle, originally scheduled for Dec 12, was canceled until further notice. We'll keep you updated.

For what it's worth: we actually enjoy reading author acknowledgment pages. Writers work HARD on their books -- fiction and non -- and it's their right to give thanks to whomever they please on the one page of their tome that didn't have to go through thirty revisions.

And here's another thing that's been amusing us on this utterly delightful Thursday morning. You guys ever heard of Jessica Cutler? Well, she's yet another blogger-turned-author. She writes about sex, and she did a VERY, VERY naughty thing. We LURVE it when the industry throws a tantrum over a scandal as juicy as a lecture cancellation.

The Book Standard reports:

MediaBistro’s catty attack on blogger-turned-author Jessica Cutler -- for backing out of its “From Blogger to Author” event next week (an attack which did garner the site some publicity on the New York Post’s Page Six and Gawker) -- forces us to once again consider the issue of what makes bloggers successful as authors -- or whether, in fact, one can translate into the other. Survey says: yes, sort of.

Cutler's book, The Washingtonienne, isn't breaking any Book Scan sales records (especially considering the hefty advance -- typical). Gawker called her a "smart whore," and Page Six made their usual dirty headline puns.

MediaBistro definitely didn't spare Cutler. They write whine:

Still, we're shocked -- shocked -- that someone known for exchanging sex for money would behave this way.

OUCH. We think you hurt her feelings, Fishbowl.

Perhaps Cutler just forgot to thank MediaBistro in her acknowledgements page and was too ashamed to show her face at the course. Which is still happening without her. Obvs.

 

12/7/2006 11:22:22 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

There are two issues in the news that I will be fussing over all day today. The first is the conflict in the Middle East, and obviously, I'm both disturbed and obsessed with that. Second is the fact that a certain Ms. Avril Lavigne has gotten hitched with her one and only Sk8tr Boi, Deryck Whibley of the pop-punk band Sum 41. I care deeply about both of these items, although it's obvious that the former is...er...more significant and of a greater concern than the latter. From my perspective, though, they're both important. I adore Hollywood gossip. I follow the dating misadventures and marriages of pretty, young, strange Canadian pop stars with a vengeance. International affairs, though...well. Tomorrow I'll forget that Av's on her honeymoon, and I'll be worrying about Hezbollah and Israel's next move. But know I'll still be interested in whether she and D-dawg make it through the first year. And I expect to be told.

Which brings me to Gail Caldwell's rumination, "Beyond Measure," in yesterday's Boston Globe. Her Critic's View piece muses over last year's NYTBR's "Best" poll, which asked 200 writers and editors (fiction authors included) to choose the best work of the last 25 years. After receiving 124 responses, Toni Morrison's Beloved was deemed the winner. There were plenty of weird and annoying discrepancies in the poll -- the fact that Morrison only gleaned 10% of the vote, and Philip Roth split it between seven of his books. Some writers voted for themselves, and didn't select what is widely regarded as their superior work. Some writers voted for other writers. Some writers didn't bother to vote at all, or couldn't pick just one work, and tried to justify that with essays and alternative suggestions.

Caldwell's been a book critic for quite some time, and she's got the smarts and the perspective to prove it. Which is why even a year after the poll, her thoughts here are still awfully relevant:

"And with 150,000 books published each year, somebody has to thin the herd. That's where reviewers -- and booksellers, book clubs, prizes, polls, and your own Aunt Margie -- come in. I know one snobbish writer who, whenever a stranger would ask her for a reading recommendation, would smile thinly and reply, 'Try Middlemarch.' I hope my own response is broader and kinder: Read what you like, what your friends like, what a trustworthy critic recommended this season. Read Charlotte's Web, or Humboldt's Gift, or Parade's End, or Michael Chabon and Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith and Rachel Cusk and Claire Messud and Colm Toibin and...oh good Lord, even Irving, I suppose."

You'll like what you're going to like, right? If you want to rip through The Da Vinci Code one weekend, or on your morning commute on the T, why not let yourself enjoy it? Why hide the dust jacket from view? Then, if you want to tackle The Sound and the Fury the next day, there's nothing wrong with admitting you heart Dan Brown. It passed the time, it made you happy for a few hours, and it brought you pleasure -- maybe not the same level that reading a classic work by a beloved American talent would, but pleasure all the same.

When people ask me what my favorite book is, I usually either say one of four: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut, or The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. It is difficult for me to choose one. But you know what I really love? The Baby-sitters Club by Ann M. Martin. Any of them. All of them. The whole series. The Super Specials and the Mysteries and the spin-offs.

I love them, and sometimes I reread them when I go home to visit my parents, when I get bored from their lack of cable. Just a few weeks ago, I watched The Babysitters Club movie for free on Comcast On Demand. And I enjoyed every last second of it. Stacy is my favorite character. She doesn't just dress the coolest. She IS the coolest.

7/17/2006 11:25:56 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |