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The early start

Sunday 1/21/24

Four in the morning now on this Sunday. Been at it for a little bit.


I received another letter about David Remnick, containing some very serious allegations. This is dark, bad stuff. It's not for me to share as this person decides if and how they want to come forward. All I did was offer some input. I can put parts of my letter on here, though.


Have also been receiving a number of notes about the prose off with the J. Robert Lennon story from The New Yorker. They are variants on the same idea, which makes sense, because it's the salient and unavoidable idea, saying how "comical" it is the difference in quality of the writing between his and mine, that it's "hilarious," "funny," "like a joke." One person, speaking of Lennon's story, said, "I could actually do that."


I say this calmly, because I'm used to this and I know what is happening, and it does not serve my purpose to let myself be overrun with anger. As I said, it's impossible to look at what J. Robert Lennon does, and what I do, and not realize that one writer is infinitely beyond the other, and the work of mine infinitely beyond a work that ran in The New Yorker. The same point could have just as easily been made with 700 other works. I mean, there it is. What could be more obvious? And what could be a more obvious display of blatant discrimination? These are things that are impossible to deny. By the fiction editors at The New Yorker. By anyone in an industry. By anyone in the world.


There was also a note saying, "And he looked exactly like I expected him to look." Yes, well, it does tend to go like that.


I don't automatically credit anything that anyone says regarding allegations (or many things, for that matter). I take no one automatically at their word, nor even believe, outright, that they are who they say they are. Which also doesn't mean I automatically disbelieve them. But I also know these people in publishing, and I know if the one thing is not true that many other things--and many things like that one thing--are. Most of these people are filthy. They have to buy storage units to stash the skeletons that won't fit in their closets.


My niece had her birthday party with her friends, and my sister sent me some photos and videos. It's nice to see a child so happy. Children: such innocent creatures. They don't have hearts filled with hate. They meet the world with wonder and curiosity. They're not threatened by people who know more than they do. They want to learn from them. They don't consciously note the idea, but they have a focus on growing, and more so than almost all adults.







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