BAD PUBLICITY?

Is it good publicity in disguise? Inspiration vs. aspiration. Who can handle being misunderstood? The ethics of memoir. This and more!

A few months ago, we were working with an editor at the Daily Mail (sigh) about the background story of a book that involved police reports. During the editor’s last conversation with the author, they let the author know that they would be reaching out to the folks with whom said police report was about—regardless that the author’s book had been through legal and that the result of contacting the perpetrators in the case could stir up all kinds of upheaval for the author, who already experienced intense trauma from the folks in the first place. The editor did not tell us, I guess, because they knew we would pull the interview, and we did. I got a miffed email and then went about my day.

The interviews leading up to that pull out were fine, the editor (at first) understood the boundaries, but of course had 90% control of the framing and 100% control of the headline. (I hate the headlines-control because I would have completely switched the hierarchy of this TIME Ideas piece from Dr. Melody Glenn—being a mother didn’t make it impossible, the ER environment made it impossible to do both, but ALAS. Media loves framing motherhood this way). We don’t frequent pitching places like this (that was the first time) but we thought the story warranted it.

Last year, in the span of literally fifteen days around the American Thanksgiving holiday, The Daily Mail covered Blake Butler’s Molly three different times. November 20, they shared a diary entry excerpt, November 25 (an exclusive) Butler is interviewed (the angle is emotional and framed to portray Butler as telling his story to help others), and then December 5, the more salacious side of the memoir is covered. Take a wild guess which one got the most traction (relying on comments), and led to a few heated Twitter exchanges between Butler and folks defending Brodak. In every piece, there’s a large cover image of Molly about three scrolls down, which you might imagine is good book coverage. But the question is: are the folks reading The Daily Mail going to transfer to book buyers? Then, of course (lovers of drama that they are even if they pretend not to be), ten days later Alexander Schwartz covered the memoir for The New Yorker in a piece titled, “Can a Memoir Say Too Much?” (I would normally assume this coverage was planned in advance (months) of any Daily Mail coverage, but the headline question leads me to believe that it might have been prompted by the drama of the Twitter feud, fueled directly by the Daily Mail headlines). The New Yorker is more obviously the coveted audience Butler hoped would see his memoir, so in that case, the Daily Mail pieces were worth the effort to get to the hoped-for audience of more literary folks (who may then buy the book).

From responses on Twitter, I can’t be sure that Butler didn’t expect the heat, though the responses do seem surprised (perhaps, defensive). And yet, the first line of the New Yorker piece is a quote from Molly (kind of makes my brain hurt) which says, “Should I be allowed to make this said?” a line hundreds of pages into the book. So, the author has at least thought the question gathering heat—in fact, I would argue, that question, “Can I write this?” essentially, seems to be the central question of the whole publicity campaign. Notice that question isn’t HOW can I write this, but CAN I write this? It was unavoidable then.

A question that comes up often in memoir. Kelly McMasters writes about it for Literary Hub and Iris Jamahl Dunkle and McMasters talk about it on Fiction Non Fiction, Robert Siegel talked with his own mother for Harvard Review (side note: Siegel was one of my favorite professors during my MFA and he’s teaching a workshop on the ethics for Writing Workshop coming up in September), Alex Luppens-Dale for Book Riot has tried to write objectively about the legality, Elisa Gabbert has written about “ethical advice” for her old advice column at Electric Literature, and it’s a question that often comes up on podcasts like Family Secrets with Dani Shapiro and Let’s Talk Memoir with Ronit Plank.

Then, there’s the angle of this piece in The New York Times about writers penning dueling narratives about their divorce. First a memoir, then a novel, then another novel—who will get the final word? (And what’s the goal?) Everyone’s fav Leslie Jamison will have something similar happening in another year-ish if book announcements are reliable timelines, and it’s all kind of reminiscent of the Natalie Beach / Caroline Calloway writing feud.

Studies have showed that people tend to interact more with negative posts on social media, and negatively-spun stories in larger media which impacts our mental health. (The Data Behind Your Doom Scroll is a good read), so I can’t say that bad publicity isn’t good publicity, but I do think there’s something strange happening with “aspirational media.” Of course people are going to interact with scandal, or a story that obviously has two(or more)-sides to co-sign or debate. It’s a similar feeling to the long embrace of advice columns, we read them to see whether our values align or not, to … judge (somewhat). It’s as if media has become the guy that goes, “well, to play devil’s advocate…” Discourse > facts.

And for at least a decade now, we’ve moved from “inspiration media” to “aspirational media.” Maybe this has been happening forever, but I feel like with the rise of influencer media, the inspirational has been completely lost to the aspirational: shopping hauls, lavish vacations, body modification and filters, family structures, even “taking walks” has become a goal-oriented activity. The difference between inspirational media and aspirational media for me, is an I’m so happy for you / them / this, and I want that / them / this. A cheering, togethering vs. a hierarchy and a wish list.

And because the framing of the new profile of Gary Shtenyngart in the New York Times is “he’s the last of his kind,” it’s definitely an attempt at aspiration because the piece is saying essentially—you’ll never get here with your writing—that golden, George Plimpton age is over (but not for Gary). But look at what you could have if rather than simply writing, you embraced influencing. Of course the New York Times would never use the language of “influencing” here but they are arguing that Shtenyngart made an interesting turn toward style icon and now suddenly, he makes enough money to perhaps afford an 100k watch. I have not Book Scanned his sales, but I do remember back in my Bookstagram days feigning for a copy of Super Sad True Love Story and loving it, though I haven’t picked up another Shtenyngart book since, and I’m not sure why.

It is funny to be writing about him as a 10k suit style icon, when this is the shortest premise for his third book and the first I read of his, “The novel takes place in a near-future dystopian New York where life is dominated by media and retail.” I love this Reddit thread calling it, “the least subtle book I’ve ever read…” knowing full well that in the years since it was published in 2010, publishing has turned the coming-of-age, early-working, dystopian capitalist novel into a snow globe of oversaturated satire, as if they’re all being narrated by someone who would both hate the guy that says “to play devil’s advocate” and yet embrace that same voice in a sort of witty, existential crisis, art world, kind of way, but that’s a whole other thing.

In my personal opinion, this piece on Shtenyngart is bad publicity. Though, I’m sure there’s discourse (or will be) about the part on his penis. But another New York author and Columbia professor ordering a walking stick and being photographed with silk scarves (even if the Menswear guy is quoted—love him, and he is maybe a good binary to this inspirational/aspirational argument) might not exactly be a strong move at this very moment in time. Please don’t confuse this with the lip gloss, claw clip drama of another author sharing her favorite things (love the lipgloss you love!), but instead my take is on the sort of aspirational New York City life (I realize this was published in the New York Times), that no longer resonates with a larger public WITHOUT another piece of the puzzle. (Thinking here about the assistant / personal shopper who has a mystery boss on Tiktok—people love her, and the city she portrays, and that’s not the same thing). I would love to see more author’s collections of things (a new Substack idea! You can have it!), but these watch photos are not giving lovable Project Runway Tim Gunn, they’re giving Tim Gunn ew.

And to then pair them with the initial book description of his newest book, “…A poignant, sharp-eyed, and bitterly funny tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country rapidly coming apart, told through the eyes of their wondrous ten-year-old daughter…” is a choice. Coming apart for whom, Gary? I’ll admit here that “bitterly funny,” “dark humor,” “tragicomic” are immediate book turnoffs for me in publishing right now because I find that the voice has become kind of copy / paste, but even so—to pair a childhood fable (nostalgia! inspiration! delight!) with the multiple houses of a man (and the phrase “seven lush acres”) seems … jest at best. Though I am interested to see this return to voicy, child narrators in literary fiction, which people had definitely turned away from in recent fiction—it’s still a hard sell, I would argue (first we had Beautyland, now we have Vera, or Faith).

And more than anything, I think this is a sign of publishing eating itself. Refusing to expand regionally to remote work for editors who can acquire beyond the New York City literary machine (who have other ideas about people, places, things beyond the city), who see beyond our “elite literary publications” (would I recommend publishing in literary journals for authors starting out now?), who are thinking about reaching readers who don’t aspire to designer handbags (how big is the venn diagram overlap between those who frequent libraries and those who want a peronsal shopper at Hermés—can’t be sure! I literally see Pookie’s face when I think of Hermés so I need to remedy that in my brain so I can rid my imagination of private equity).

But now I’ve gotten too far from my original point and I’m showing my bi(a)as as someone living (who has always lived) in the American South and never planned to pursue publishing from Brooklyn. I just want to ask the question: does this piece sell Gary’s new book for you? Did you buy Molly because of the discourse? (I’ll admit here that I have not read it, though I was partial to the first excerpt in Harper’s). Do you put money behind the literary feud (did you order a copy of the Didion / Babitz book?—a choice even to list Didion as the first name in the title—I would love to hear the in-house arguments for this, if there were any). Is it worthwhile to you to read a divorce novel, a divorce memoir, and another divorce novel by two previously married writers in order to “see all sides” (or do you just like the drama)? Do these stories behind the books even work on you at all (publicity at large?). I guess the question is: where are you willing to put your time, money, and opinions, in a world of big four books that increasingly mirrors an ouroboros.

Writers I talk to are always saying they want to read more books with good writing (though no one can agree on what that means, institutionally or personally), and big publicity does not equal big sales, but it does say something (a lot of somethings) about what our media cares about and holds up, and perhaps how writers can think of framing for media vs. framing for the bookstore shopper, or the book clubber, or the librarian.

As a writer: would you rather have the “bad publicity” (or badly-framed, perhaps untrue of what you were attempting to do) or no publicity at all. There’s probably a piece of all publicity that gets the intention wrong—reviews an author doesn’t agree with, sentences that grate, a read that ignores one thread for another, etc). This is perhaps the real question, because it’ll help you figure out your own boundaries when it comes to marketing. Can you handle being misunderstood? (I, for one, would struggle).

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ICYMI: Lauren K. Watel’s Book of Potions was reviewed in Brooklyn Rail, Michelle Gurule wrote about the secret behind paying for dental work for Huff Post, Lara Lillibridge reviewed Mothers and Other Fictional Characters for MER Literary, Nin Andrews Son of a Bird was reviewed in Best American Poetry blog, Terese Svoboda wrote about her mother-in-law’s polio for Slate, and so much more on our Twitter & Instagram.