Disqus - Latest Comments for Lawrence_Tate

Re: #LoveOnLove: Unmissable Relationship Advice From Courtney Love’s YouTube AMA

Lawrence_Tate — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:02:26 -0000

"Her talent is a wild and fantastic one" - Sean Penn

Re: Philip Roth’s Next Book and Biography: What’s Going On?

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:00:02 -0000

Well, in 2010, Ross Miller delivered a talk about Roth at the University of Connecticut where he works, indicating that he was still at work on the biography of PR
http://www.dailycampus.com/...
-except that he wasn't, according to the New York Times last week-
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytim...
-which is about Blake Bailey taking over as Roth's authorized biographer, and which quotes Roth's agent Andrew Wylie as saying that Miller stepped down from that job in 2009. I get the feeling that if Bailey wants to avoid getting the same treatment that James Atlas got from Saul Bellow, he'd be well advised to drag his feet on this until after Roth is no longer among the living.

Re: NewswireR.I.P. Tony Martin, singer and star of golden-age film musicals

Lawrence_Tate — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:29:41 -0000

In the '30s he was married to Alice Faye, one of the planet's half dozen hottest back then.

Re: Singer-Actor Tony Martin Dies at 98

Lawrence_Tate — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 10:23:55 -0000

Incorrect to say he was the last big star from golden age of musicals...Isn't Esther Willams still living?

Re: The Mysterious Disappearance of Peter Winston

Lawrence_Tate — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 14:49:12 -0000

Well - here are some things to think about:
a) His mother was so protective of him when he was young that she had him sleep in a crib in her room when he was six.
b) But the NYPD says she never filed a missing persons report. Nor did his sister.
c) And you would expect a mother who was once that close to her son to spent the last decade or so of her life, if she died in 2010, appealing all over the internet for any word of him. But no, nothing.
d) And no move to have him declare dead was ever made, apparently. Usually, next of kin who are disinclined to make that declaration are holding out hope the person might still be living and trying to network all over to find out if that's the case. But not here.
What the hell is going on here? Are there aunts or uncles or cousins who could explain further?

Re: Confessions of a Plagiarist

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:28:09 -0000

Sorry about the duplicated comments. Sometimes Disqus is a bitch to handle.

Re: Confessions of a Plagiarist

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:19:24 -0000

Correction for Rex: JT Leroy turned out to be Laura Albert rather than Susan Alpert. But bringing up Frey as well illustrates a problem. Frey is still part of the literary world because he sold tons and tons of his books before he was exposed. Money talks louder in publishing than it ever has. He has a "fiction factory" now where he employs quite a few desperate MFA grads to turn out schlock under his rubric, a la James Patterson.

Suppose Rowan fils (yes, I'm afraid I have to rub that in, Q, and I'll do it until your father posts his side of the story) had pulled this off - his book had become a sleeper hit, then he'd done a hardcover that sold a half-million copies, and the movie franchise got going. Could he have been stopped then?

But then again the cases are different. Frey has the kind of dumbass macho fratboy attitude that suits, whether in Tinseltown or (non-quasi-cult) Midtown, go for. (I well remember his very first interview in the NY Observer where he boasted he was going to blow Dave Eggers off the map with A Million Towlie Threads or whatever.) So he was quite capable of brazening this out, and probably could have done that even if he'd sold somewhat fewer books. The younger Rowan doesn't have that. All he can do is get scolded by his dad. Then tell us his dad cried - or did he? Lou, again, your side of the story.

Re: Confessions of a Plagiarist

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:06:30 -0000

But to expand on what Ed wrote - go to lourowan.com, Google from there, and you'll see what Lou's son Quentin's problem is. I wonder if he ever addressed that at meetings - or whether he's content to wave his arms around and tell them how HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of copies were returned - interesting, because Little Brown only printed 6500 copies, as several book-biz bloggers have stated.

Could it be said that AA, if it can put up with the likes of Rowan fils, has come a long way from the Absolute Honesty concept it lifted off good old Frank Buchman? I wouldn't say that. I can't think of a meeting near my neighborhood where they'd go for his shtick.

He would have had better luck in some outfit akin to Midtown, the quasi-AA quasi-cult that used to bedevil the genuine work of AA around the DC area. Lots of willing girls, lying and self-abasement disguised as self-help - yep, that'd have been the ticket.

But I have the feeling he's headed down the same road as Stephen Glass - law school, then a job as a paralegal because no firm would trust him as an associate or partner.

Except that Glass did publish a novel with a major imprint before his writing career ended. And it never was recalled, and, so far, nobody's found any plagiarism in it. His problem - writing fiction and presenting it as nonfiction - was a little different.

Re: Confessions of a Plagiarist

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:58:36 -0000

Good summing-up from Dr Mabuse.

Re: Confessions of a Plagiarist

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:48:08 -0000

Well, go to lourowan.com, Google from there, and you'll get an idea of what the real problem is with Quentin, Lou's son. I wonder if he addresses this at meetings. Or if he just waves his arms around and says, "HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of books were returned!" Interesting - because, as several book biz bloggers have pointed out, only 6500 copies were printed.

You'd think, reading the above, that AA has come a long way from the Absolute Honesty concept it lifted off good old Frank Buchman if it can put up with Quentin. But I don't know of any meeting near my neighborhood that would go along with his shtick. Maybe if he found some outfit akin to the Midtown quasi-AA cult that used to operate around DC, he could lie all he wanted and get all the chicks he wanted, and given his environment, an offense like plagiarism would be far down the list. But I get the feeling his destination is law school, then work as a paralegal because no firm would trust him - just like Stephen Glass.

Except that Glass did manage to publish a novel with a major imprint before his writing career ended. And I don't think anyone's found plagiarim in it - yet. Glass's problem was writing fiction as nonfiction. A little different.

Re: Thomas Pynchon Has 10/1 Odds of Winning Nobel Prize - GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 16:32:45 -0000

Pynchon could likely use the money from a Nobel - Against The Day sold about 15,000 copies in hardcover and Inherent Vice probably sold 35,000 or 40,000, numbers far below those of Vineland 20 years back. But he has the problem that he has turned down every award he has been offered since he got half of the NBA in 1974. In 1976 the American Academy of Arts & Letters gave him the Howells Medal for Gravity's Rainbow. He declined it.

In 1998 the University of South Carolina tried to give its annual award for fiction with an Appalachian setting to Mason & Dixon. He declined that. (The letter he wrote to the prize committee's chairman and the inscribed copy of M&D that he sent the guy used to be for sale at Abebooks.)

The Nobel people, ever since Sartre turned the Literature prize down, have been very, very skittish about another refusal. (And even before Sartre, in 1962 when the Swedish Academy was trying to decide between giving the Nobel to Steinbeck and awarding it to William Saroyan, Steinbeck got the nod primarily because Saroyan had turned down the Pulitzer in 1940.)

In 1969, afraid that Beckett, who usually refused awards, would turn the Nobel down, the Swedes got his French publisher to guarantee beforehand he would accept it. Since such a guarantee is a matter of personal honor in that land, Beckett reluctantly agreed to accept after he learned of it.

But an American publisher's word doesn't have that effect so I'm skeptical that will happen. I would guess Cormac McCarthy has a better shot. He writes books that make good Western movies, and the Swedes have always loved Westerns - hell, a lot of Ingmar Bergman's flicks are Westerns in disguise.

Re: Boyd Tonkin: The Nobel plot against America?

Lawrence_Tate — Fri, 20 May 2011 16:09:00 -0000

The problem Roth has with the Nobel judges is not that his work is poorly translated. The problem is the relationship he had with Claire Bloom, the foremost English-language interpreter of such sacred Scandinavian names as Ibsen and Strindberg.

Re: National Book Critics Circle: NBCC Reads, Part II: Some Nonfiction Titles We’d Like to See Back in Print - Critical Mass Blog

Lawrence_Tate — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 21:00:48 -0000

Jeremy Treglown's book Romancing is a biography of Henry Green, not Graham Greene.

Re: Wizard of Oz Book Signed by Cast & Crew of 1939 Adaptation to be Auctioned - GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 17:00:47 -0000

OK, so Morgan signed, but the Munchkins are still the dealbreaker.

Re: Wizard of Oz Book Signed by Cast & Crew of 1939 Adaptation to be Auctioned - GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:59:03 -0000

If the Wiz and the Munchkin Coroner and the Lollipop Kids didn't sign, forget about it.

Re: Jonathan Franzen Packs the House - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 11:29:21 -0000

That would be Paula Fox rather than Paul. Courtney Love's grandmother, to you Gen-X and Gen-Y'ers. Frances Bean Cobain's great-grandmother, to you post-Mils.

I was surprised to find out Steinbeck was never on Time's cover, but the mag's site shows that that's so. What say McNally-Jackson or some other enterprising outfit put together a tag-team debate on whether or not Steinbeck was a good writer? On the pro side, say, Franzen and Tom McGuane (who always has spoken well of the man from Salinas) or maybe even old John's No. 1 fan, Springsteen. On the opposite side, Robert Gottlieb (who dissed Steinbeck at length in the NY Review a while back) and...uh...some Gottlieb protege like Adam Gopnik I guess. Sure to draw a crowd.

Re: Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library to Open - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:42:50 -0000

One wonders if Charles Shields, whose biography of old Kurt is to be published next year by Holt, will be invited to speak at the opening. Not long after his father's death Mark Vonnegut told the newspaper in Indps that he thought it had been a mistake for his father to authorize Shields's work.

Re: Barnes & Noble to Shutter Upper West Side Superstore in NYC - GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:39:04 -0000

More ammo for the Apron Man.

Re: Thomas Pynchon Defends Ian McEwan Against Plagiarism - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:35:42 -0000

This is hardly news. But if you want some startling Pynchon stuff here goes:
Judith Regan's Wikipedia entry (which bears some strong signs of having been written by her personally, in violation of the Wikirules) lists the authors she published - and at the end, the subjects of three biographies she handled. These being Hitchcock, Tallulah Bankhead....and Pynchon.

Regan never edited any such book at S&S nor did Regan Books ever publish a Pynchon bio when it existed - nor was one ever announced.

So what goes on here? Did ReganBooks commission a Pynchon bio that was in progress when Harper pulled the plug? If so who was writing it?

Enquiring minds wanna know. (And the P-listers at waste.org I guess.)

Re: Jeff Bezos Predicts Publishers with Cheap eBooks Will Dominate - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:45:15 -0000

Can somebody explain why Amazon has been non-functioning for two hours and more?

Re: Kitty Kelley Says Bio is Not 'A Takedown' of Oprah - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:28:52 -0000

"If" someone wrote a bio of Kitty? A biography of her was written and published back in the early 1990s: "Poison Pen" by George Carpozi Jr. The publisher was Lyle Stuart, who'd published Kitty's first bio "Jackie Oh" in the '70s, and had some beefs with her. I don't think "Poison Pen" sold all that much, but even so, for a biographer to have a biography of him- or herself is pretty uncommon.

Re: Philip Roth and John Grisham Interviews Fabricated by Italian Journalist - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 13:22:26 -0000

The fake interview with an American author is hardly unknown in the overseas press. Another recent example that comes to mind is when the December 2002 issue of Playboy's Japanese edition ran a piece titled "All News Is Propaganda," attributed to Thomas Pynchon and purporting to be remarks from an interview given a Japanese journalist. A translation of this can be found at

http://against-the-day.pync...

Since Pynchon never formally denied (through his wife/agent Melanie Jackson or otherwise) that he'd given the interview, the ongoing bibliography in the Pynchon Notes journal lists it. And since Pynchon never has given a published interview there's nothing to compare it with. A lot of it doesn't read like something he'd be "expected" to say but there are some parts of it that at least remotely sound "Pynchonesque." But then again, there are some parts of it that make you wonder if Jay McInerney was approached by some hapless Japanese inkster in a bar one night and impishly pretended to be Pynchon. Caveat lector, anyway.

Re: Arianna Huffington and the Future of the Book Review - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:37:17 -0000

I have to wonder, since Arianna has Herodotus and Heraclitus mixed up, whether she really is a Greek after all.

I mean, you can go into any diner on the Eastern Seaboard, lean into the kitchen, and say, "Who said, 'one never steps in the same river twice'?" and they'll all say Heraclitus.

I always thought she looked more like a Persian. Plenty of them came to Greece after Alexander conquered them. And none of them knew about Heraclitus. He was before their time.

Re: Author Who Wrote Tie-Ins for <em>Gilligan's Island</em> to <em>Bewitched</em> Receives Award - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:01:27 -0000

Not to be confused with the late William W. Johnstone, whose novels about ex-Confederates and mountain men are perennially popular among prisoners and ex-prisoners affiliated (or not) with the Aryan Brotherhood. Johnstone died in Feb. 2004, but at the time neither his publisher nor his website announced this fact, and did not confirm his passing for nearly three years, so no obits were published. According to Wikipedia, the first official word of his death came in the text of one of his posthumous books, with the announcement that "J.L. Johnstone," presumably a pseudonym and not a relative, would write further books in the series he started. Now, this is one interesting story, that, far as I know, never made the litblogs.

Re: Nobel Prize in Literature to Be Revealed Oct. 8 - mediabistro.com: GalleyCat

Lawrence_Tate — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:11:46 -0000

In 1993 the Swedish Academy rewarded America for no longer having a Bush in the White House with a Nobel for Toni Morrison. I think history will repeat itself next week, and my guess is that they'll go with Joyce Carol Oates. Unlike Roth, who speaks peevishly of other writers, including a few Nobelists, in interviews, JCO accentuates the positive. I well remember seeing her deliver the commencement address at Connecticut College seven or eight years ago, where she was telling the students the story of how Stephen King diligently worked at his craft at odd hours till he sold Carrie. My sister, not especially interested in this, turned to me and asked why her school had chosen a weird-looking vampire to speak.