Questions for Plum Sykes
Written byPosted on May 30, 2004
Filed Under New York Times, Satire, Solomon, Deborah, Sykes, Plum
Your new novel, “Bergdorf Blondes,” have created some disgraceful and unintentionally hilarious Q&A sessions which demonstrate that you are a Tina Brown in the making.
I have a new disease, which I’ve called glitteratitis. I want Bret Easton Ellis to use me as an object in his next novel, preferably as a footstool.
As a writer for Vogue, you have ideas, right?
I’m too beautiful to be concerned about the human condition.
You’ve used “blonde” as a verb and every time you open your mouth, people have been actually lost brain cells listening to you.
You’ve got to keep the English language fun. Have you ever known an English teacher aware of this season’s fashion designs? I haven’t. Perhaps if these teachers paid attention to the way they dressed, English classes wouldn’t be so square.
How can you justify writing a book about these kinds of women with all that is going on the world?
After 9/11, I finally had the excuse I needed to open up my secret stash of candy. And I thought to myself that Jonathan Franzen needed to write a history of candy rather than these long novels about human behavior. He made my head hurt. Who really wants to pay attention to that sort of thing? This age is about comfort and self-entitlement. If you look at this lady with the cigarette in her mouth, she’s simply not in fashion. And besides, we have cheerier photos at Vogue.
What did you study at Oxford?
I wrote my thesis on the frizzy hair movement of the 1970s, drawing particular attention to the Farrah Fawcett feathering movement. It was well received.
P.T. Barnum once said, “Never underestimate the stupidity of the American public.” Would you say that you could apply this to being born in London?
How brilliant. Can you pick up lunch?
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9 Responses to “Questions for Plum Sykes”
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
And the irrational hatred grows further and further…
Many attempt it, but no one can replace Tina Brown. Not even Tina can replace Tina.
Irrational hatred? I don’t hate my targets. I just mock them.
Thorough and incisive as usual, Ed. I had a few follow-up questions about her pubic hair, though. Guess I’ll have to wait for the movie.
So when does that Sarah Jessica Parker novel hit the streets?
Also, her elbow weirds me out. To be specific: It looks like there is a frowning pair of lips at the back of her elbow. Or maybe her elbow is grimacing, not content to be called literature of any kind? I’m not sure what kind of expression her elbow is attempting — maybe it’s simply trying to get out of frame — but it’s disconcerting.
If this comment is overly shallow, I comfort myself that I remain a rather deep pool in comparison to its subject.
Damn you, Carrie, now I’m going to dream of elbows tonight…
Ya know, if you grafted some T&A onto this Sykes fella, he’d make an attractive woman.
Perfideous Princesses, Cont’d
This interview in the NYT Magazine with “Bergdorf Blondes” author Plum Sykes made me gag, as I’m sure it did for any reasonable individual reading it: “These girls are quite serious about finding an A.T.M. An A.T.M. is a rich…
On Meaning and Stuff
We’re not much for the author as celebrity concept. Mostly because most authors we know are not well suited to public life. Our instinctive wariness of Bergdorf Blondes doesn’t come from the words on the page as much as the hoopla surrounding the aut…