It’s official. Deborah Solomon now rivals Rex Reed as the least distinguished interviewer of the past forty years and comes perilously close to Ann Coulter as the most deliberately hateful writer working today. One is tempted to unleash limitless fury against such a bilious interlocutor. But that would only involve resorting to her level.
Nevertheless, Solomon’s interview with Christine Schutt sets a new low for the Times. It smacks of an anti-intellectual hubris that, at the risk of invoking Godwin, one might associate with the 1933 Opernplatz incident, whereby brownshirts tossed “un-German” books (in Solomon’s case, books that aren’t published by a mainstream press) into a raging conflagration of pure destruction. The actual quality of Schutt’s work isn’t discussed. But the publishing circumstances and Schutt’s lifestyle choices are. It is a complete disgrace that such a fixation would be encouraged, let alone published, in a major newspaper. It suggests that the New York Times (possibly in collusion with Tanenhaus’ diminishing returns on the literary fiction front) has openly declared a war on literary culture. And, as such, it has no substantive value to any serious newspaper reader.
Not only does Solomon compare literary excellence with a washing machine, but, in inveighing against Schutt for the formulation of a story idea, she is utterly incapable (perhaps deliberately so) of comprehending how art originates, let alone understanding the distinction between art and reality. This lack of comprehension is interesting, given Solomon’s roots as an art critic for the Wall Street Journal. But even then, Solomon was hungrier than a gravid wolf. She was fired by Raymond Sokolov because she insisted on writing for several other publications on the WSJ‘s dime. But that didn’t stop her from tossing soda onto Sokolov’s lap.
Solomon has a long history of failing to get the job done. In 2001, Solomon attacked the Milwaukee Art Museum without bothering to visit the museum or its collections. And, as Charlie Finch has suggested, Utopia Parkway, Solomon’s biography of Joseph Cornell, is the rare case in which the author clearly despises her subject.
So what do you do when you’re a jaded biographer dissatisfied with your work? You lash out at your subjects. Instead of confronting a major politician about the history of his remarks, you ask him about his hair. You ask one of the greatest figures in rock and roll history if he’s dying. You take the easy route and go after the easy targets.
What does Solomon’s continued employment (and corresponding attack dog tactics) prove? It suggests that the Times is more interested in catering to devout readers of People or Maxim than actually probing its subjects. It communicates to its loyal readership that they are dumb, dumb, dumb, and that the Grey Lady (ridiculously enough) is oh so cool. It perpetuates a sad chronicle of a major newspaper that consistently undervalues literature.
And in adopting and reinforcing this stance, the Times has demonstrated that it is no different from the half-literate country bumpkins.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
she’s the worst–she’s like jiminy glick without the ironic wink.