Why Don’t Straight Men List Books by Women in Their Online Dating Profiles?

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Growing up with a hip older brother, and as a hoarder of crushes, I was struck with the “cool girl” curse at an early age: I felt an obligation to cling to and highlight my dude-friendly interests. My earliest, and perhaps most acute, memory of this was aggressively proclaiming my status as “the fart queen” at age 10 in an effort to impress my 13-year-old brother’s adorable and particularly flatulence-humor-driven friends.

The fart queen evolved into a pop punk princess, then into a sk8r gurl, then into a woefully undiagnosed celiac who would chug forties of malt liquor just to show she could hang. To this day, I still don’t know if Dr. Pepper was always my favorite soda, or if it became my favorite soda because I read in Tiger Beat that Lance Bass had Dr. Pepper on his rider.

As a particularly book-inclined kid, this tendency crept into my reading habits. I devoured much of Palahniuk’s oeuvre in an effort to appeal to all of the members of Panic! At The Disco, a group of humans I would never meet. I worked my way through dude canon, reading Bukowski, Easton Ellis, Vonnegut, Foster Wallace, Roth, Kerouac. Instead of sifting through this mix to identify the gems and the turds, I lauded all of it as absolute genius.

I feel more confident now in my likes and dislikes, but there remains an arena in which we all still try to put our most attractive and interesting selves forward: online dating profiles. My profile on OKCupid admittedly features not just my favorite things and most cherished quirks, but the ones that I thought would make me the most swipe-worthy. This pressure causes a blur of easily mocked stereotypes for a lot of online daters — men boasting their height, women swigging whiskey in bikinis celebrating their love of swigging whiskey in bikinis. The foot we put forward when trying to date isn’t just our best foot; it’s specifically the one we think will be most appealing to our gender(s) of choice. And yet, straight men, even the most well-read men, often fail to list a single woman writer or book by a woman in their online dating profiles.

Straight men, even the most well-read men, often fail to list a single woman writer or book by a woman in their online dating profiles.

I’m definitely not the first person to notice this, but it made me curious.. Did these men not read books by women, not like books by women, or just not care to list books by women on a profile they used to impress…women? I decided to launch a low-key investigation into the dearth of women writers on straight guys’ OKCupid profiles. If an otherwise promising man didn’t list any women writers or books by women writers among his favorites, I wouldn’t go out with him — but I would ask him to explain.

I approached the process as organically as possible, filtering men down initially to those I would be interested in anyway. At the outset I stressed about the parameters. What about men who only list books by men except for Harry Potter? What about men who list books by women, but clearly one or two they had to read in high school? What about men who don’t list any books at all?

What Anaïs Nin Can Teach Us About Online Dating

Ultimately, my own tastes helped hone the field to a group of men that OKCupid’s behind-the-scenes robots already tag as “bookish”: men with robust, and sometimes even diverse, lists of books and authors in their profile, liberal guys, creatives and creative adjacents, men with glasses and beards.

In order to delve deeper into why some otherwise attractive, interesting, and intellectual men don’t list any women writers or books by women in their profile, I asked. If a man I would otherwise be interested in messaged me first, I would find a way to work in the fact that I wasn’t going on dates with men who didn’t list women writers and ask why they didn’t. When I was feeling particularly bold, I would ask the same of men I would otherwise be interested in, even if we had only matched and they hadn’t messaged me first.

If a man I would otherwise be interested in messaged me first, I would find a way to work in the fact that I wasn’t going on dates with men who didn’t list women writers and ask why they didn’t.

My first swing was an aggressive miss. I matched with a handsome guy who quoted bell hooks in his profile but had a lady-less list in his books section. When prodded about why, he immediately unmatched. Luckily, most of the other men were surprisingly forthcoming. Responses were a mixed bag of thoughtful, defensive, funny, and long-winded. Out of the nine men I spoke with, they fell into three categories — the defensive ally, the reflective “well, actually” historian, and the favorites purist — or some combination of those three.

The defensive allies were rich in performative feminism, but dirt poor in empathy and uninterested in holding themselves accountable as even slightly less than perfect. While none of them called me names, they were quick to assume that I had made a truly despicable value judgement of them based on my one criterion. They would guffaw and list the women whose words they loved, and the work they had done to support women in the past, but they never even tried to answer the question of why none of those women merited a mention in their dating profile. I gratefully did walk out of the experiment without being called a B-, C-, or S- word which is more than I can say about some online dating experiences where I don’t even try to prod a sleeping bear.

The reflective “well, actually” historians were more open to the question. Several said they hadn’t thought of it before, even thanked me for pointing this gap out to them. They did, however, have a different kind of defense, quickly citing the historical reasons why. I was told with surprising frequency that there are just much fewer books by women historically. (This is factually questionable, although there are certainly fewer in the canon — but there are still plenty to read if only one deigns to.) One guy, apropos of nothing, felt the need to share that he had tried and tried to enjoy Jane Eyre, as if Charlotte Brontë were to blame for the fact that no woman could really make it into his list of all-time favorites.

One guy, felt the need to share that he had tried and tried to enjoy “Jane Eyre,” as if Charlotte Brontë were to blame for the fact that no woman could really make it into his list of all-time favorites.

Most often, though, I dealt with the favorites purists — the men who certainly enjoyed books by women, but not enough to have them rank in their top faves. They would explain that they only listed books they had read more than once, authors whose work they had truly pored over, the brilliant minds behind the worn paperbacks they shoved into their messenger bags. One self-proclaimed avid reader listed just shy of 40 books and authors but failed to see that maybe he had some self-reflecting to do if no women made the cut. The favorites purists often seemed horrified at my suggestion that they sneak a woman into the top 40; they saw meddling with their immutable list of faves as disingenuous at best, deceitful at worst.

Beyond a deeper psychological unpacking of why no woman had spoken to these men the same way that Raymond Carver or Philip K. Dick or Don Delillo, this obsession with the genuine felt misguided and maybe even reductive. Dating is an exercise in self-presentation, as much as self-expression. These guys probably chose flattering photos, highlighted cool hobbies, failed to mention disgusting habits, and wore their least holey underwear on early dates. So if they really did love a bunch of books by women, as they claimed defensively when I asked, why were they so shy to include them in a forum where they are explicitly trying to impress and attract women? Why didn’t they think that would make them look cool?

While girls are often shown from an early age that the way to impress a boy is to like boy things, boys are just as often shown from an early age that the way to impress a girl is to…also like boy things. This is not to say that “cool girls,” like the one I was, are manufacturing an interest in culture usually seen as the province of boys; most of us actually do like the “boy things” we advertise as our favorites to the world, but we also highlight those preferences and play down any ones that seem too “girly.” But even if we were genuinely attempting to cultivate new preferences for the sake of connecting with someone, what is the harm in that? One defensive guy asked me if I would rather be with someone who lists their genuine favorites, or with someone who uses some pick-up artist signalling tactic to list books by women just to get laid. I choose neither. I choose a man who truly loves a book — just one book! — by a woman, but failing that, I choose a man who likes a book by a woman and cares enough about what women think of him to say so.

While girls are often shown from an early age that the way to impress a boy is to like boy things, boys are just as often shown from an early age that the way to impress a girl is to…also like boy things.

Only one of the men I messaged with on OKCupid asked for recommendations of more books by women, and the last time I checked, none of the men had updated their profile to list any of the women authors they rattled off to me in direct messages. Their top secret love of Mary Shelley and Margaret Atwood somehow never made it to their public self-declarations, even once I’d pointed out that it’s something women want to see. For these men, the best version of themselves is still all about what they think of themselves first and foremost. Even when presented with the fact in explicit terms, these guys struggle to comprehend that attracting a woman like me — smart, creative, educated, legendarily gassy — might include announcing that they admire women like me.

Part of me imagined witty and flirtatious sparring leading to a mutual understanding and a steamy intellectual first date. Alas, I didn’t fall in love with a handsome rogue after a heated virtual tete-a-tete over the canon of women in literature. I did not find my Mr. Darcy (a reference from a book by a woman!!!!) on OKCupid. I did, however, have a few promising conversations with men who did list women writers in their profile. Some even listed women that I list in mine, like Ottessa Moshfegh, Carmen Maria Machado, Anne Carson, Roxane Gay. In setting a pretty low bar, I was able to create a smaller, and much more compatible pool of potential dates.

Even when presented with the fact in explicit terms, these guys struggle to comprehend that attracting a woman like me might include announcing that they admire women like me.

At the end of the day, I truly was a fart queen, I really do enjoy Vonnegut, and I still drink Dr. Pepper. But I also internalized an idea of how I had to put myself forward in a way that most men don’t. Where were the boys trying to impress me with their love of Judy Blume, tea parties, and Fiona Apple?

At the end of all of this, I’m still single, so if you have a bookshelf jam-packed with books by women that you actually enjoy, hit me up. And if you don’t, I won’t hold it against you, as long as you are open to reading more women until you do.

Waiting on the Floor for God

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The following story was chosen by Jess Walter as the winner of the 2018 Stella Kupferberg Memorial Short Story Prize. The prize is awarded annually by Selected Shorts and a guest author judge. The winning entry receives $1000, a 10-week writing course with Gotham Writers Workshop and publication in Electric Literature. The winning work will also be performed live on Selected Shorts at Symphony Space in Manhattan on June 6, 2018.

Joan of Arc Sits Naked in Her Dorm Room

Joan of Arc sits in her dorm on a Saturday night. Joan of Arc is always home on Saturday nights. She does not go out for pizza or beers, or to the movies, or even the theatre, though she would probably enjoy the theatre, for Joan possesses a theatrical heart. When she speaks in class, she thrusts out her chest and focuses her gaze high in the air, as if on some floating orb of light. Though her answers are often wrong. The teacher feels badly having to correct her, though in all consciousness, he cannot show favoritism — not even for spirited and stubborn girls with charmingly ugly haircuts.

The truth is, Joan struggles with school. She usually sneaks a recorder into class so she can listen to the lectures again at night. But Joan is prideful, and will only do this when her roommate is out. Fortunately, Joan’s roommate has a boyfriend and is often out. This boyfriend’s name is Max. He is from Quebec and speaks a beautiful, whispery French. Sometimes, as he waits for his girlfriend to change her clothes, or finish an episode of The West Wing — he and Joan will speak in French. He is very polite and always asks Joan about her classes, or the book she is reading, or the fish she keeps in a wine decanter. He says, How is your little friend? And Joan says, Still alive!

Max has a head of luscious chocolate curls and sometimes Joan dreams of pulling them taut. Of peeling off his wool sweater and kissing the delicate bones at the base of his neck. She does not understand why Max is in love with her roommate, who talks too much, and is a slob, and lacks cursory manners. But oh, is he in love! He kisses Joan’s roommate fervently at the door, and stares at her in awe, as if she is not his girlfriend at all, but rather, some fantastic, complicated woman he’s only ever seen from afar.

On Saturday nights, when her roommate is with Max, Joan takes off all her clothes. She lights a candle and sits cross-legged on the carpet, which scratches her buttocks in a pleasurable way. If anyone asked — though no one ever will — she would say she was waiting for something. Or rather, for someone. Waiting for the candle to go out in a gust of wind, for the smoke to curl into the air in the form of letters.

Joan has always thought of God as a secret friend. When the wind ruffles the back of her shorn hair, or she finds a five-dollar bill on the ground, or when she wakes in the morning from a dream of indelible lust with moisture slick between her legs — well, that is God. Her friend. Her only friend.

And because she likes to give God a face, she often pictures Max. He will come into the room where she is sitting, and kneel before her. She will ask if he wants to take off his clothes, since the room is warm, and it’s strange to be naked alone. And God-who-is-Max will say, D’accord, in that whispery voice of his. And Joan will reach forward and pull his hair very gently. And he will say Joan, how is your little friend? Is he still alive? And she will say, Do not talk to me about fish, not now, and he will say, You’re right, and she will say, I’ve been waiting for you, and he will say, I’m here.

10 New Books About the Messiness of Motherhood

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We are in the middle of the Year of Mothers. We can all recall the moment in 2016 when it was impossible to walk into a bookstore without bumping into a book with the word “girl” on the cover. Now it seems, the girls have morphed into moms. No medium is immune to the magnetic force of motherhood, whether it is the TV series Jane the Virgin, the indie film Tully, or any one of the ten books on this list.

On the eve of Mother’s Day weekend, we decided to gather up the 2018 books about mothers piling up on our desk. There are memoirs, essay collections, and novels. Most of the books on this list were written by women who are tired of societal assumptions about having children: the assumption that motherhood looks like a cozy, heteronormative nest, the assumption that motherhood is beautiful and generative, the assumption that women spring fully-formed into mothers, or the assumption that motherhood and womanhood are co-dependent categories of being. Here are ten titles in 2018 that highlight the demand for messier, lived-in accounts from women who do, or don’t, want to be moms.

Like A Mother by Angela Garbes

When food and culture writer Angela Garbes became pregnant, she quickly burned out on all of the “advice” (read: shame and judgment) she was getting from statistic-bloated obstetricians and judgmental friends and family. She decided to go about her pregnancy with the same verve and curiosity she would any other assignment. The book is a demand for more honest and nuanced information about pregnancy and women’s health. Like A Mother is a feminist treatise that ultimately makes the case for why women need access to better care. This means more holistic support, cultural inquiry, and science-based information about what’s really happening to a woman’s body before, during, and after pregnancy.

The Motherhood Affidavits by Laura Jean Baker

The Motherhood Affidavits is a memoir with a storyline that is stranger than fiction. Laura Jean Baker has found the cure to her lifelong depression in the hit of oxytocin (the hormone released into the body during pregnancy and near-death experiences) she gets during her first pregnancy. The “love hormone” turns into a craving and addiction that makes the size of her family grow beyond the means she and her husband Ryan, a public defender, have to offer. As Laura Jean Baker struggles with her dependency on the hormones produced by having children, she begins to see her own actions reflected in her husband’s clients. She studies alleged murders, robberies, and arsons. In the process she develops compassion for the clients’ actions, while building up more evidence against the benevolence of her own actions. Baker weaves together crime reporting and confessional memoir to present her personal experience of motherhood as addiction.

That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam

In his new novel, Alam mines his experience of raising two adopted black sons to tell the story of Rebecca Stone, a mother of two sons in the 1980s. Rebecca is a poet married to a British diplomat living in Washington. She is white, and her nanny Priscilla is black. Rebecca is grateful for Priscilla’s mentorship and friendship, and as a poet, she is deeply sensitive and disturbed by the way her words are born from good intentions but shadowed by racism. When Priscilla dies in childbirth, Rebecca decides to adopt her nanny’s baby. The adoption opens her eyes to the way the world builds language around her two sons, and more particularly the way the world treats her two sons in wildly different ways. That Kind of Mother explores the hyper-visible and invisible identities of mothers and sons, examining the way race, class, and culture require some to stare, and give others permission to look away from the conflicts at the center of what it means to raise a child in America.

And Now We Have Everything by Meaghan O’Connell

Squeamish readers may find O’Connell’s memoir uncomfortably frank; she doesn’t shy away from visceral images like scabby nipples or the giant knitting needles that are used to break a woman’s water if it doesn’t break on its own. And Now We Have Everything strips away all the gauze that pads most portrayals of pregnancy, birth, and early motherhood, and shows the experience for the open wound it really is. It’s a forthright, unsparing, weirdly loving, and eminently human account of the hardships and rewards of motherhood.

Meaghan O’Connell Thinks Motherhood Is What Keeps Women Oppressed

Motherhood by Sheila Heti

PSA: Motherhood and womanhood are not the same thing. In Heiti’s novel, the narrator is surrounded by friends in their thirties, all asking each other when they will or should have babies. But the narrator, deeply skeptical of the assumption that she must have a child, asks herself “if” and “why” she might become a mother, at all. Heiti writes, sharp, clean and elegant lines that try to illustrate and frustrate the assumption that being a woman is inextricably (and problematically) tethered to being a mother. As a young woman being prodded by “concerned” doctors, “well-meaning” strangers, and “responsible” family members about when I, too, will become a mother, Heiti’s question is welcome on my bookshelf.

Mother of Invention by Caeli Wolfson Widger

If you learn anything from books like And Now We Have Everything, you learn this: Motherhood changes your life. But what if it didn’t? In Widger’s science fiction novel, tech CEO Tessa Callahan’s company Seahorse is hard at work on products like remote nursing rigs that will make it easier for fathers to care for infants — but it still hasn’t solved the problem of pregnancy. Then Tessa links up with social media heir Luke Zimmerman, who’s pioneering a way to get pregnancy down from nine months to nine weeks, making it only a fraction as disruptive for women’s lives and careers. But as the first cohort of Seahorse subjects begin their ultra-accelerated gestations, shady secrets start to come to light about where the technology comes from and where it’s going. Mother of Invention may be science fiction, but it’s gimlet-eyed about the way pregnancy and motherhood can stand in the way of women’s ambitions.

Stray City by Chelsey Johnson

An anti-romantic comedy, Stray City follows the coming of age of Andrea Morales in 1990s Portland. A young gay woman fleeing from her conservative Catholic family, Andrea vows to reject her heteronormative upbringing and finds belonging in a thriving commune of artistic, zine-making lesbians. After a painful breakup with an older girlfriend, Andrea does the unthinkable and begins a clandestine affair with a man. Her brief and intense affair leads to a pregnancy and she decides to raise the baby on her own, much to the chagrin of her parents and the “Lesbian Mafia.”

Chelsey Johnson’s ‘Stray City’ Deals with Queer Reality, Not Queer Theory

Things That Helped: On Postpartum Depression by Jessica Friedmann

Sometimes the only way to resurface from depression is to focus on small steps, little things that we can stack back up into something that looks like a whole being. In Things That Helped, Jessica Friedmann writes a beautifully lyrical and intellectually complex series of essays that bloom from the focus on one object, idea, or category. The essays are intersectional studies that weave in ecofeminism, cultural studies, and questions about race and gender. Though I am not a mother, I pined for this book after reading the excerpt published by LitHub: “Blood, Birth, and the Talismanic Power of Red Lipstick,” which left me dewy-eyed and jelly-legged on a subway platform, because Jessica Friedmann is able to celebrate and interrogate the vivid, grotesque, and sublime tissues of the female body.

Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty by Jacqueline Rose

According to Jacqueline Rose, the way we construct motherhood in Western culture is wrong and dangerous. We bury all our problems in mothers, and we have projected unrealizable fantasies onto the mothers in our lives. We blame mothers for all the ills of the world, then idealize them as the problem-solvers tasked with amorphous, unsolvable problems. Rose pulls in everything from Elena Ferrante to Victorian divorce law to make the case that we need to make more space to listen to mothers’ voices, to give the darker characters of motherhood more room to breathe.

Reading About the Worst Parts of Motherhood Makes Me Less Afraid

An Excellent Choice: Panic and Joy on My Solo Path to Motherhood by Emma Brockes

We need some humor on this list! Thank goodness for Emma Brockes and her blunt, witty account of deciding to become a single mother at the age of 37. A British journalist by trade, and in the early stages of her relationship with her girlfriend, Brockes decides to travel to the US to undergo IUI (Intrauterine Insemination) procedures. Brockes wrestles with her Libertarian Ob-Gyn and muses on the bulk-order options and existential conundrums brought on by sperm donor catalogues. As the wave of capitalist/tone-deaf Mother’s Day cards and candles wash over us, we can be grateful for Brockes’s challenge to the ways we celebrate motherhood: Why are more and more women choosing to undergo fertility treatments to become single mothers? How does society treat women who try but ultimately cannot have children?

The Best Literary-Inspired Outfits from #DressLikeABook

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The changing of the season and the influx of new spring titles has inspired us at Electric Literature to up our fashion game and come to the office dressed to match a book cover. Glossy fashion magazine, we are not, but geeky feminist literary publication, yup, that’s us.

To celebrate the season of expensive cold brews, budding tulips, and al-fresco dining, we asked our readers to play literary dress up using the hashtag #DressLikeABook. Behold the 17 best literary inspired outfits and be sure to continue sharing your photos with us on Instagram.

Restaurant Reviews by MFA Students

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Bouffage reviewed by R. Hemingsley

Virginia Woolf once said, “One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” Fortunately for Virginia, she never had to dine at Bouffage.

The problems began as soon as I read the entrée descriptions. Squid ink pasta is so cliché. Why not bull semen pasta? Or Bic-pen ink pasta? Give us something we don’t expect. Also show, don’t tell. Instead of writing “grass-fed beef” on the menu, let me divine the beast’s culinary proclivities by tasting the earthy richness of the field. Let me feel the sun on my hide. Make me one with the cow.

Squid ink pasta is so cliché. Why not bull semen pasta? Or Bic-pen ink pasta? Give us something we don’t expect.

The steak, potatoes and green beans didn’t form a unified narrative on the plate. They were adjacent to each other, but not interacting. It’s like the ingredients were elements the chef wanted to include, but with no real reason why. Let me see the relationship between them. Let me feel the tension, the way they push and pull at each other. Overall, the meal suffered from a lack of cohesiveness. Needs a complete revision.

Olive and Ash reviewed by Quentin Prentice

Olive: round, plump yet firm, with a saltiness that suggests the tears of humanity. Ash: dust carried on the wind for all of eternity. Our waiter said the name came from the intersection where the restaurant is situated, but we think the chef was alluding to the painful arc of human existence, springing forth from fecundity only to become a remnant of destruction.

The first course arrived on an oversized plate with a wide rim. Was the chef saying the food was an insignificant speck floating in a sea of nothingness? A slice of shaved cucumber topped with lemon-caper foam huddled in the center. The foam disappeared when touched with a fork, leaving us to wonder what was real and what we had conjured.

A crackling of crispy chicken skin descended upon our table. But why just the skin? What is — dare we ask — underneath? We invite the chef to go deeper, to delve into the dark realm. True talent lies in not playing it safe.

A crackling of crispy chicken skin descended upon our table. But why just the skin? What is — dare we ask — underneath?

Finally, dessert: cheese and berries served “family style.” But why finish the meal with a shared plate? We enter the world alone, and we die alone.

Taco Bell reviewed by Jay Salerno

What this restaurant lacked in authenticity, it made up for in originality. When I first walked into the Taco Bell on Federal, I was skeptical. The décor was banal and forgettable. The menu had all the elements one would expect — cheese, salsa, guacamole — yet it felt uninspired. I wanted to be transported to Mexico, and I was sorely disappointed. But then I tried the cross-genre hybrid feature known as Nacho Fries. The chef embraced a minimalist aesthetic, presenting the fries in a small cardboard container with a sleek understatement that contrasted delightfully with the gustatory sensory overload. Spiciness. Saltiness. A pleasingly indulgent soupçon of grease. A gooey, rich cheese sauce. The combination was stunning. Leave behind everything you think you know about nachos and fries; this ground-breaking snack is pushing boundaries and challenging our conceptions of the status quo. I believe that Nacho Fries signal the dawn of a new era in the American fast-food canon. What a time to be a gastronome!

I Only Listen to Audiobooks on Vinyl

Bistro on Union reviewed by Clarissa R.

A true work of art is never done. And neither was the chicken.

Mercantile reviewed by Blake Cabot Humphries IV

I hate to brag, but I know a lot about the restaurant business. I ate at the Poolside Grille at the country club all the time when I was a kid, so you could say I grew up in the industry. Here is my informed critique of Mercantile: instead of monkfish with puréed sunchokes, I’d suggest swapping the monkfish for ground beef, substituting a burger bun for the sunchokes, and topping the beef patty with a sliver of grilled onion. That’s how they did it at the country club, and it was great. Just thought I’d share.

I’d suggest swapping the monkfish for ground beef, substituting a burger bun for the sunchokes, and topping the beef patty with a sliver of grilled onion.

Ecru reviewed by Jen Stanton

The portions were super small and some of the things were kind of weird. Beet scarpinocc? Nettle salsa? Pearl tapioca sabayon? Honestly, I only do these reviews so I can tell people I’m a food critic and hopefully score some free meals. I spent $110 last month on lit mag submission fees, and my ramen supply is running low.

James Joyce Ruined Me for Orthodox Judaism

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When I was 5 my teachers refused to read the Beauty and the Beast book I eagerly brought in for read-aloud because Belle’s cleavage was too prominent. When I was 12, they claimed I couldn’t compose a book report on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone because of its illicit content on witchcraft. When I was 18, they crossed out lines in Hamlet that alluded to penises. Teachers received these orders from rabbis, because rabbis know this: literature can stretch and shrink and shape the whole human mind.

So instead of secularist literature, I did this: At 5, I read what 15th-century rabbis said about Sabbath. At 12, I read what they said about modesty. At 18, I read what they said about existentialism. And at 19, I flew to Jerusalem for a year to read what they said about everything. Especially marriage.

Did you know the Talmud says that if a young man isn’t married by 18, “God waits for him until he’s 20, and if he’s not married by 20, then God says ‘blast his bones’?” If God is so vengeful with the young man, you can only imagine how He is for the young woman.

Rabbis know this: literature can stretch and shrink and shape the whole human mind.

After Jerusalem, I enrolled in a local Orthodox all-female college, and watched as other girls attended class with locks of unruly Jewish curls straightened to punishing submission and eyes carefully lined. There were no guys in class, of course. But at 19, these Shoshanas, Chanas, and Leahs became beauty-conscious just in case they crossed paths with a matchmaker.

I spent the money I didn’t have on Lancome makeup and keratin hair treatments to be like those girls. I, too, hoped to catch a man who could maneuver through office politics as deftly as he could through the twisting logic of a Talmudic text. What did I dream for us? To caress each other, beside the shadow of Sabbath candles, with the quick eagerness and slow tenderness of a couple who were virgins before marriage (as Jewish law required us to be). And what did I dream for me? For a baby’s warm breath on my breast while flipping leisurely through kosher recipe magazines. This life — oiled to wheel smoothly across the spheres of family and religion — is what we Orthodox girls prayed passionately for.

And so I hurtled myself through dates: with men who said I was too observant because I refused to hold their hand through Central Park (God’s rule, not mine), and with those for whom I was not observant enough because, over bowls of ravioli, I championed reproductive justice. There were also months of silence when matchmakers didn’t phone to suggest a date, and I caught myself doodling crying faces on the corners of college notebooks.

At 20, the weddings were all the same. I sat across from former high school acquaintances who self-consciously flipped their new wigs, symbols of having crossed the great beyond to marriage. They clinked glasses of weak Moscato politely during dinner, clicked their heels delicately during dancing, and gossiped over talks of in-laws during the reception. Meanwhile, bachelors at the wedding couldn’t catch a peek at my then-svelte figure in Spanx because they were shepherded away from women for religious reasons. Another single girl commented, “You look like Rose in Titanic. You know, from that scene where she’s having dinner in first-class. Right before she tries to jump off the ship.” Perhaps, in that moment, when trumpets echoed hollow across the ballroom, we were mirrors of each other. We both knew oppressive alienation when it was there.

What Does It Take for Ultra-Orthodox Women to Leave Their Repressive Lives?

At this time, I was still in the all-girls Orthodox college but, in a teeny-tiny rebellion, I switched from Brooklyn to its Manhattan campus. There were no boys, booze, or cannabis on campus and so my brother’s “Be careful of the types of girls in dorms,” was vacuous at best and laughable at worst. There were a handful of pants-wearers. The rest of us still nervously adjusted the length of our skirts in front of male professors.

But as those 15th-century rabbis, the ones whose words I highlighted obsessively in Jerusalem, would caution: It’s not the girls you need to be wary of, Rebecca. It’s the goddamn literature. (Rabbis. They swear when it matters.)

As those 15th-century rabbis would caution: It’s not the girls you need to be wary of, Rebecca. It’s the goddamn literature.

“This semester, we’ll start with Dubliners, James Joyce’s collection of short stories,” said Professor Budick. His voice soft, his eyes sharp. “Here’s one word that I want you to know before we read it: paralysis.”

“Paralysis in literature,” he continued, “means that you cannot change yourself spiritually, socially, or politically even if you’re insides are clawing and begging you ‘Move, fool. Move.’”

Circular journeys haunt characters in Dubliners. By the end of their stories, they return to a staid life, thus choosing stagnation over movement. From boy to middle-aged man, each character shakes with desperate melancholy. The kind that feels palpable only because it reminds us of our own fear of battling the unknown.

Joyce’s writing is so stupidly moving. Sprawled across Central Park’s Great Lawn, I digested all of his realistic dialogue and descriptives over and over. But the story in Dubliners most responsible for changing the course of my sails, the one the 15th-century rabbis are surely tearing up in heaven, was “Eveline.”

The story in Dubliners most responsible for changing the course of my sails, the one the 15th-century rabbis are surely tearing up in heaven, was “Eveline.”

Eveline is about a 19-year-old girl who, at the story’s opening, reflects on the heavy parts of her existence. Ever since her mother and older brother passed away, her father turned abusive and threatened to beat her. Eveline also becomes responsible for providing for her living family members. This does not come easy as her job is dull, difficult, and with no promise of mobility.

But hope arrives in Frank, a sailor whom she loves and who promises to take her to Buenos Aires. Of course, conflict seizes her: “She had consented to go away, to leave her home. Was that wise? She tried to weigh each side of the question. In her home anyway she had shelter and food; she had those whom she had known all her life about her.” There is that strange comfort of predictability in Ireland. There is also the memory of her mother. The night before she finally decides to escape with Frank, she hears a melody on the street that played on the day her mother died. Eveline finds it “strange that it should come that very night to remind her of the promise to her mother, her promise to keep the home together as long as she could.”

So far, this story seems Romeo and Juliet-esque; there’s poetic symbolism and the wrenching romantic conflicts of an adolescent — but where’s the punchline? “Wait,” said Budick. “We’ll read that tomorrow.”

How 'Moby-Dick' Illuminates American Tragedies

And we did. On this day, we learned why “epiphany” is such a Joycean theme, and then we embarked on Eveline’s very own: As Eveline “mused the pitiful vision of her mother’s life laid its spell on the very quick of her being — that life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness. She trembled as she heard again her mother’s voice saying constantly with foolish insistence: ‘Derevaun Seraun! Derevaun Seraun!’ She stood up in a sudden impulse of terror. Escape! She must escape! Frank would save her. He would give her life, perhaps love, too. But she wanted to live.”

After Eveline’s epiphany that she must escape, readers pray that she will join Frank in Buenos Aires, not because he — a mere man — is the answer to happiness, but because her risk-taking is the solution to paralysis. And so, as ten Orthodox girls held their breath in our intimate English class, Budick reads this moment of truth aloud:

A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:

“Come!”

All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her.

“Come!”

No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amind the seas she sent a cry of anguish.

“Eveline! Evvy!”

She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

There has never been another writer who has terrified me more with words than Joyce has in this scene. I wondered: am I destined to be Eveline?

Did I inherit “passivity, like a helpless animal” as I did the wide set of my mother’s nose or father’s thick glasses prescription? Epigenetics may answer “yes.” My female ancestry from Azerbaijan seem to have passivity drawn with permanent marker on their double X chromosomes. Cursed by one of the loudest brands of patriarchy, girls hung up sheets post-wedding night to prove they were indeed virgins with freshly broken hymens, trickles of blood and all. These women were stronger workers, fiercer nurturers, and better cooks than I will ever be. But they didn’t stage an uprising. Instead, patriarchy followed mothers to America where they berated their daughters for spending a day on the beach with a new man, fully clothed and barely touching. Am I destined to be Eveline?

Did I inherit “passivity, like a helpless animal” as I did the wide set of my mother’s nose or father’s thick glasses prescription?

Did I inherit passivity through my religion? Oh, there is female baddassery in Judaism! Yael and Judith dashed the brains out of evil anti-semites with tent pegs. But my own cohort of women who wish to revolutionize, seem too afraid to feel empowered as a single woman or wear a shorter skirt for fear of snickering neighbors. Am I destined to be Eveline?

I enjoyed religion, in spite of its laws about minuscule things, like how to tie your sneakers. In high school, I wrote diary entries earnestly headed with “Dear God,” and signed off an even more earnest “Your Servant, Rebecca.” I counted tear stains on prayer books like the bragging rights they were. Each morning, that unknowable, unnameable transcendence was mine to claim. But itches are meant to be scratched. Especially when you grow up and the biblical texts that once excited you feel dry on your tongue. You are estranged in a home you once thought was yours.

Right now, my religion is openness to experience. And my Satan? Stagnation. At 24, I broke a Jewish law and kissed a boy. At 25, I slipped on a pair of pants. At 26, I swayed my hips to music in a way that is necessary to release sadness and also in a way that Orthodoxy forbade. My version of God can flow with the river too.

At 24, I broke a Jewish law and kissed a boy. At 25, I slipped on a pair of pants. At 26, I swayed my hips to music in a way that is necessary to release sadness and also in a way that Orthodoxy forbade.

For my irreverence, I was fined with anguished fights, aggravated silences, and “your grandmother rolls in her grave”-isms. But unlike Eveline, I will take all of that instead of carrying the unbearable weight of paralysis.

The rabbis probably didn’t suspect that it’d be a dead Irishman who’d be my undoing. Ever since I brought in that cleavage-ridden Belle book to school, they probably thought smut and erotica would be the genres to unwound me. But that’s the thing about literary power. It’s unpredictable. And even the most unlikely stories can pour icy water on your back when you expected to struggle under heat for the rest of your life.

How Pregnancy Taught Me to Say No to Everything and Write Novels Instead

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I noticed it early in my first pregnancy, when I was 32: the world treated me differently with a baby inside me than it did when I was a solo human practitioner, uterus vacant and belly comparatively flat. Some of the changes I didn’t mind: a dependable seat on the subway during rush hour, encouragement from my boss to go home early for no particular reason. Thoughtful gifts that turned up unexpectedly from far-flung relatives: pricey swaddling blankets, the nursing pillow with the all-time cringiest product name: My Breast Friend. Other turns were not as nice: the strangers who felt free to fondle my belly, the wild-eyed guy who screamed he’d “put a death curse” on my baby after I’d “stolen” his parking spot. My male obstetrician, who seem fixated on my weight gain, reminding me to keep an eye on it at every appointment.

But the most prevalent change I felt as a pregnant woman was the general permission to opt out. Of anything: dinner with friends, after-work drinks with colleagues, jogs in the park. Of cleaning the bathroom, book club meetings, my exercise regimen and cooking dinner. Of answering the phone.

The most prevalent change I felt as a pregnant woman was the general permission to opt out.

I realized, with increasing exhilaration, that as a pregnant woman, I was off the hook. Nobody explicitly told me I had a pass, of course, but it was something I felt, a subtle shift in energy between me and everyone else: my husband, my colleagues, my friends, my own mother. For the first time in my life, I felt the power to say No, without fumbling through excuses. My excuse was growing inside me. Anyone could see it.

Why was this significant? Well, I’ve always had unusual difficulty saying no to everyday requests from perfectly nice people. I first became aware of this tendency in college, and of the pattern intensifying as I moved into adulthood. On the surface, the inclination toward “small yeses” (as a therapist once called it) might not seem like a problem. But ordinary appeals — even well-meaning invitations — anything from Can you grab the dry cleaning to Got a little time to talk? to Want to come with me to a show tonight? — had begun to stir vague panic in my chest by the time I turned 30. Not because the individual questions were unreasonable, or because anyone was trying to take advantage of me, or because I was truly opposed to the activity at hand. The panic stemmed from the feeling that, regardless of my actual desire — and unless I had a real, hard conflict (or made one up) — I could not say no.

I did this over and over and over, for nearly a decade. Between grad school and having children, mid-20s to early 30s, I became the sort of writer who did not publicly identify as a writer — despite having written furiously from an early age, despite having completed an MFA, despite having published a slew of poems and short stories. Privately, writer was my primary label, right up there with woman and human. But when people asked what I did, I’d consider for a flash how much time I actually spent writing — as in, ass-in-chair, words-on-page — and say, Well, I work full-time in HR, but I also write fiction, sometimes.I got an MFA, so…” I’d trail off with a self-conscious laugh before quickly segueing into, And what about you?

Perhaps it was spinelessness, or a classic feminine desire to please, or a dearth of self-knowledge. Perhaps it was a confusion of priorities, or a lack of discipline. Whatever the culprit, one consequence was crystal-clear and chafed at me every day: I was not writing enough, or hardly at all, despite the fact that I desperately wanted to be writing. I had no time to write, because I chose to have no time, by saying yes to everything else.

I had no time to write, because I chose to have no time, by saying yes to everything else.

I spent my first pregnancy noticing the opportunity to change my accommodating ways, but not doing much about it. After my son was born, I slipped back right back into yes-ing, perhaps more wantonly than ever. When he was almost one, we moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, where the weather was always great, and I downgraded my HR career (always more of a necessity than a choice) to very part-time contract work. The combination of 75-degree, blue-sky days, a minimal paycheck, and ample unscheduled time with my son made me feel beholden to some hazy debtor. Even though mothering was plenty challenging, it didn’t feel like enough of a contribution, and being a mostly stay-at-mom seemed too luxurious. In retrospect, this would have been a perfect time of life to write, but instead, I filled it up with nonstop obliging of other people: I agreed to edit the resumes of people I barely knew (everyone’s favorite “small favor” to ask of their friend who works in HR), volunteered to host toddler playdates, spent hours counseling a new mom friend about her divorce, shuttled my son to ridiculous activities he mostly screamed (not happily) through, like “Baby Zip Line Time!” Most nights, I prepared elaborate vegetarian meals to eat with my husband, turning down his frequent offers to simply pick up dinner on his way home.

Why, why, why? I desired almost none of these commitments I’d imposed upon myself. In the shower, I would fantasize about a perfect day: a few sweet hours with my son, a little money-making work, a solid bank of writing time, dinner that magically appeared on the table.

In the shower, I would fantasize about a perfect day: a few sweet hours with my son, a little money-making work, a solid bank of writing time.

But I was not writing. Not at all. Instead, I was scrambling to Target and Kidnasium and chopping vegetables.

Everyone appreciated my efforts, but no one required them. But I needed the acknowledgements. I needed to be verified as doing stuff for other people, being industrious, helpful. The need burned hot and low inside me, re-igniting with every invitation, every potential favor, every casual request. My first reaction was always to speculate what the other person wanted me to say. My own desire, well — I’d deal with that later.

My real desire was to write. I had an idea for a novel in my head, rumbling and writhing and demanding release. And yet I would not make the time to release it. A hard knot of self-disgust lodged permanently in my gut. I softened it by telling myself, over and over, that the time would come. That at some point, in the not-too-distant future, the universe was going to hand me a chunk of sumptuous, golden time to write a novel, its purpose as clear as a holiday turkey on a platter.

The irony was, I’d already been handed the turkey. A writing life back then, in fall of 2009, was fully available to me. I had childcare and a wonderfully supportive husband and a godforsaken laptop. All I had to do was open it.

But then a text chimed from a mom friend with a two-year-old: Possible for me to drop Maddie off for a few hours? Have an appt.

Sure thing! I shot back, and began combing my pantry to make sure I had little Maddie’s favorite snacks on hand.

And then I got pregnant again.

The morning sickness smacked me almost right away, something that hadn’t happened the first time. For a few weeks, the nausea and exhaustion were so intense I could hardly drag myself out of bed.

Then, it passed. I felt better. Much better. My husband and I announced the pregnancy. And then I remembered how it worked: the proffered subway seats back in Brooklyn, the encouragement from everyone to take it easy, the unexpected gifts.

The lowered expectations.

The easy Nos.

I got out of bed, ten weeks pregnant, and I began to write. I quit my mom’s group, referred people with problem-resumes to a good staffing agency, and let my husband fill up our Veggie Grille punch cards with takeout dinners.

With my new free time, I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. I wrote more that year, at 34, than I had in all of the previous decade; through a few thousand words a day (most of them throwaway, but still), the novel stuck inside me unfurled and released.

The pregnancy gave my sense of time new hard edges, parameters. My writing time no longer felt elastic or endlessly available. There was no creative paradise waiting for me somewhere outside the time-space continuum. There was, however, another newborn, another set of raw nipples, months of sleeplessness, just around the corner.

My writing time no longer felt elastic or endlessly available. There was no creative paradise waiting for me somewhere outside the time-space continuum.

So, I needed to write now — while my pregnancy was cushioning me from the endlessly-demanding world.

The world could wait.

I finished a draft of my novel before my first daughter was born in August of 2010. Eventually I landed an agent and sold it. It was published in 2014, right around the time I got pregnant again.

I got bolder with the third pregnancy. I got up in the early morning dark and left the house. The kids were tiny — I’d just weaned my daughter — and mornings weren’t exactly a breeze. But my husband could handle it — of course he could! In fact, my going out in the mornings to write had been his idea, years ago. I’d just never taken him up on it.

Reading About the Worst Parts of Motherhood Makes Me Less Afraid

Why are you never at breakfast? my son sometimes asked me. Why can’t you work at home?

Because Mama needs to write, I said. Then I revised it: Because Mama loves to write.

My third pregnancy chugged along, bringing the same swollen calves and a preoccupation with Wetzel’s pretzels. This time, I didn’t even wait to “feel” the permission from others set in; I simply bashed into another novel and finished the draft shortly after my second daughter was born. It took longer to revise and sell this time, but I did it. Shockingly, it’s about motherhood, and desire, and time.

Most of our lifeline is unspecific. We know roughly when things will happen, but not precisely. Death looms on some vague horizon. Pregnancy, on the other hand, is a clean nine-month(ish) time capsule. It comes with its own unique set of expectations. It’s not an easy time, but for me, it was an essential gift. Twice. It enabled me to live according to my deepest-held priorities: to write regularly, with purpose. I may have always had the permission, but pregnancy gave me the courage claim it.

I may have always had the permission to write, but pregnancy gave me the courage claim it.

I no longer need to be pregnant to hold writing at the center of my life. This is fortunate, since I’m in my 40s now and not having any more babies. It’s sometimes still a struggle to guard my writing time, to protect it, to make it nonnegotiable, to not let competing priorities swallow it. Having a writing life, I’ve learned, is a matter of balancing desire with responsibility, discipline with flexibility, generosity with self-care. I’m still not immune to granting small yeses to the wrong requests. But I’ve learned to pause and ask myself what I really want from the brief, precious hours of my day. And when anyone asks, I never hesitate to tell them I’m a writer.

The 8 Best Curses In Literature

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For as long as we’ve told stories, we’ve told stories about curses. Often they’re punishments, occasionally they’re strictly allegorical, and sometimes they’re just plain bad luck.

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But whatever their explanations, these enchantments provide exactly what we human beings long for both in literature and our daily lives — clear causes behind ruinous effects, explanations for the frightening and irrational.

Our misfortunes are much easier to bear when we attribute them to gods or evil spirits, and our guilt is much easier to stomach when we view events as operating outside of our own power. As Alexander Chee’s Lilliet Berne tells us, our true misfortune is “not that we cannot choose our Fates… [but] that we can.” Still there’s nothing like a good magical malady to get a plot moving, subtly moralize, or set up a scare.

Here are the eight best curses in literature:

Cassandra in The Iliad by Homer

You can’t beat Greek mythology for tragedy. Cassandra sees her future — which includes the downfall of her family and the destruction of her home — and is cursed to have no one believe her visions. In several versions of her story, the god Apollo first gifts her with the power of prophecy, then curses her to never be heeded when she refuses to sleep with him in thanks. Some things never change.

Lilliet Berne in The Queen of the Night by Alexander Chee

Chee’s novel is steeped in the melodrama of the operatic form, so naturally his heroine is plagued by a curse. Lilliet is a falcon soprano, doomed to one day lose the lovely voice that both launches her career and puts her in path of danger. Whether or not the curse is real, Lilliet operates under a veil of superstition and intrigue, making drastic decisions in the name of her supposedly inevitable fate.

Effia in Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

A fire rages in the woods on the night Effia is born, and because of this her village thinks of her as cursed. She’s told she’ll never become a woman and will be sterile. Though this curse “may have been rooted in a lie…it bore the fruit of truth:” Effia does have a son with a British slave trader, but her descendants struggle with colossal horrors throughout the next century.

Madeleine in Madeleine is Sleeping by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

The cause of Madeleine’s long, enchanted sleep is unclear — she falls into it after being horrifically punished for a sexual encounter with a man in her provincial French town. Throughout Bynum’s delicious novel, Madeleine is asleep and dreams about a gypsy circus and fantastic metamorphoses. Perhaps it’s waking life that is the actual curse.

Ursula Todd in Life After Life by Kate Atkinson

Here’s another curse that might actually be a gift: each time Ursula Todd dies, her life begins again from infancy. This allows her to live out all sorts of alternate histories, each time with a faint sense of déjà vu that steers her away from her previous cause of death. Atkinson’s clever structure reminds readers of the curse we share with Ursula: the utter randomness of seminal events.

The Watson Family in The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler

Simon and Enola Watson come from a family of breath-holding carnival mermaids, yet one Watson woman from each generation mysteriously drowns on the same day each year. Bizarre ecological events, a strange old book, and a collapsing house hold the clues to the curse of July 24th — if, that is, Simon the librarian can piece them together in time.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Most literary curses are cast towards the beginning of a novel, and the recipient spends the story dealing with its effects. Not so for Strange and Norrell, who come into their curse at the very end of Clarke’s fantastic book. Having helped prevent disaster, the two magicians are cursed to remain together in darkness. For the competitive, ill-tempered magicians the curse of eternal togetherness is just as damning as the storm cloud that follows wherever they go.

The Pyncheon Family in The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Gothic literature is rife with ancestral curses, but none is more notorious than the one cast by Matthew Maule on Colonel Pyncheon, the man who stole the land on which he built his family home. Fast-forward one hundred years or so and we see the Pyncheons continuing to suffer an array of misfortunes, which include unjust imprisonments and untimely deaths.

How Many Emails Does It Take To Not Apologize?

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“Someone is Recording”

by Lynn Coady

Hi Erica,

I don’t know if you were expecting to hear from me or not after you posted your piece — but here I am. It does feel a bit strange to be getting in touch after all this time and under these particular circumstances. I often thought of dropping you a line in the years after I left Ottawa. I wanted to so many times. But honestly, I assumed you wouldn’t be thrilled to hear from me and it was best to let sleeping dogs lie. Now that I’ve read your essay, I can’t help but think that, despite your very clear irritation with me, you were, in your way, reaching out. If that’s so, I’m glad you did.

And I’m glad you’re giving us this opportunity to hash out what happened. I’ll admit to being a little blindsided that you chose to do it in quite this way, and in this particular venue. My wife tells me thepinkghetto.soy is sort of a DIY, Millennial-centric version of Gwyneth Paltrow’s website — Goo? — with a sprinkling of personal essays. But I suppose a Millennial audience is the only one that matters these days, at least when it comes to those all-important “clicks.” Anyway, I’m very happy to know you’re still writing — it brought me back to the days when we used to comment on each other’s work. And to be honest I’m grateful to you for taking initiative to re-establish contact in such a decisive and — let’s face it — attention-getting way. I understand how important it must’ve been for you to write that piece. I do wish you had contacted me before taking it online — honestly, my delight in hearing from you again would’ve overrode any defensiveness or hostility if that’s how you were expecting me to respond. But the important thing is it’s out in the open now, and we can finally talk about it. It’s bothered me over the years, especially after how we left things. And you know what? I’d be lying if I said I haven’t missed talking to you. We had some great conversations back then.

Let me start by saying I was young and dumb. I’ll to cop to that a hundred percent. And insensitive, and kind of pompous and up my own ass, absolutely — a white, male Ph. D candidate in full plumage. Yup. The only thing I really take issue with in the piece is what you call our “power dynamic.” Erica, what power? I was a TA. Hollister barely knew my name; it’s not like I somehow maneuvered him into hiring me so I could be the one overseeing your grades. Not to mention that our relationship had run its course long before you signed up for the class. And I was fine with that, despite what you assert in your essay. (Relationship is maybe too polite a word for it, but we were definitely involved, I think you’ll agree. I think you’ll also recall who made the first move. I certainly do. And it’s a very nice memory, by the way.)

That’s that my only quibble. Otherwise I just want to say bravo. It could not have been easy to put something so personal out there — although one of the things I always admired about you was your fearlessness when it came to “just letting it all hang out” in both your writing and your life. As you know, I tend to be a little more circumspect in my own work, more about ideas than feelings, but maybe that’s why your stuff is striking a chord with the kids on thepinkghetto.soy while mine remains a favorite of today’s hottest academic journals, ha ha. So, yes, the essay threw me at first. But ultimately it was good to think about those days again and consider another perspective, even if I don’t agree with that perspective one hundred percent. It shook me up, but we all need shaking up from time to time.

Anyway, it was great to read your work again — your way with a wry turn of phrase is as devastating as ever — and I’d love to hear more about what you’re up to. The bios on thepinkghetto are pretty scant, but exciting to hear you’ve been making a go of things in New York. Gatineau girl makes good! On my end, I finally landed a tenure track post at a liberal arts college down here in the wilds of Illinois. I have a daughter now who is — if you can believe it (I can’t) — ten years old as of last April. She’s called MacKenzie — Kenz for short — and is currently obsessed with, of all things, mushrooms. If you’ll indulge a doting dad, I can’t resist attaching a photo. This was taken by Kenz’s mom at the Grand Canyon earlier this year.

Please let me know how you’re doing. And thank you, Erica. It’s been genuinely illuminating to read your piece, to see things through your eyes and think about those days again. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, and the opening, to be in touch and to renew, I hope, our friendship.

all the very best,

Gary

Dear Erica,

I just turned 43, so if memory serves, that makes you around 38? Which strikes me as a little old (sorry) to be hanging out in obscure corners of the internet, posting your personal correspondence alongside teens girls sharing their diary excerpts and selfies and (this is the first thing I saw when I called up the site, FYI) compilation videos of blindfolded people spraying shaving foam into their mouths after being told it was whipped cream. When I didn’t hear back from you, I thought — Fair enough. I reached out, you turned away — that’s your prerogative. We don’t have to correspond. You’ve said your piece — said it to all the world, or at least to your snark-addicted young chums on thepinkghetto.soy — whereas I restricted myself to keeping my feelings about your essay between us. That was my intent anyway. Until you posted them.

It’s clear you’re not interested in hearing my side of things, and you’re welcome to post whatever you like, but I think it was a little offside to cherry pick the excerpts of my letter that you did and then embellish them with your own disparaging commentary. I’m sorry if I sounded at all condescending previously (“douchey” in your words — okay, I’ll own it), but I think you’ve spent enough time around humanities profs to know douchey is something a hazard of the trade. So ok, now I look douchey in front of your delighted teenybopper fanbase, but is that a fair way to win an argument? Is that “what the kids are into”? Maybe you’re no longer interested in what’s fair. Is it possible, Erica, this brief spate of online attention has gone to your head a little? Because this is not the woman I remember you to be.

I remember you as a passionate debater, obsessed with clarity and drilling down relentlessly in every argument to get to the truth. This thing you posted wasn’t worthy of that person. Look: I know I was a bastard at times back then. But you have to admit your part in all this too. There’s the matter of your hero-worship of Hollister, which I have to say your essay glossed over. You sneeringly call him “the great male author,” as if that’s not how you actually saw him back then. You were desperate to impress him. (I even warned you about that, about coming off as too abject. Remember?) But when you didn’t, you blamed me.

And, fair enough, I was a jerk about it. I was defensive and I’ll admit, it was hard to maintain my objectivity after all your accusations. But let’s not pretend all this wasn’t a two-way street.

I want you to know I shared your latest post with my wife, Andrea. I let her read the first one too, as she and I don’t keep secrets from one another. We stayed up late after Kenz had been tucked into bed, talking about everything that happened, and with Andrea’s help I was able to put my hurt feelings aside and really come to grips with the role I played back then, and why, after all these years, you are still so angry about it. And so dead set, it seems, on making a fool of me online. Andrea asked me if, in my previous email to you, I ever said that I was sorry. I was sure that I had, but reading it over again I realize that, while apologetic in tone, the email doesn’t contain a genuine apology. So I apologize for that and — Erica? I apologize for everything. I’m truly sorry I hurt you. I understand if that’s not enough. I won’t write to you again.

With only good wishes,

Gary

You know, Erica, everything you said in that interview on YouTube, you could have said to my face. Is it that you think I won’t hear the things you have to say? Is that why you don’t bother? Because I’m telling you, I will. I have been. Can we actually talk? You can Skype me — my handle is IsntitByronic — or call my cell, the number of which has been at the bottom of every email I’ve sent you so far.

We need to work this out between us. I’ve had to lock my Facebook account thanks to your fan base, who think it’s hilarious to post memes they’ve fashioned from the sections of my emails you made public. The images accompanying this is not the woman I remember you to be were in particularly bad taste. My students contact me on there, or they used to. I also had a Twitter account I hardly ever looked at and yesterday a colleague hinted that I should. I saw I had over 100 mentions, all linking to your interview. I read a handful — I can’t imagine how empty a person’s life must be to spend all their time trawling the internet looking for strangers to mock and scold. Then I just shut the account down. These are your people, not mine. But maybe it’s time we take the dirty laundry inside, what do you say?

You should know I’ve had one or two people contact me wanting to hear my side of the story. I don’t know who these individuals are — honestly the fact that they even care about something that happened 15 years ago in Ottawa of all places strikes me as ludicrous. And splashing my private life across the internet isn’t my way of doing things. But if the harassment continues I’m not sure what option will be left to me.

Or we could just drop all this nonsense and talk like two old friends. The friends I thought we used to be.

Please just call me. Give me a chance to show that I hear you, Erica.

Gary

From: Burnam & Pace Law Group

To: Erica Shaffner:

RE: Cease and desist from online harassment

Dear Ms. Shaffner:

This CEASE AND DESIST ORDER is to inform you that your continued actions against our client Gary Weiland, including but not limited to:

1) Publishing false and defamatory assertions in various online venues including but not limited to thepinkghetto.soy

2) Inciting harassment of Mr. Weiland by publishing mocking and disparaging posts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Facebook Live, Snapchat, Instagram, Reddit, WhatsApp Tumblr, LinkedIn and Flickr (where you posted images of Mr. Weiland that had been altered in various unflattering ways, including but not limited to: dressed as a mime, fashioned to resemble the cartoon-duck character Baby Huey, and with face superimposed on renderings of both Catherine the Great and her horse).

3) Giving online interviews wherein you characterize Mr. Weiland with disparaging and nonsensical language which we can only conclude is geared toward inciting the public’s hostile interest in him, including the epithets: “assbucket,” “shitsplat,” “chickentits,” and “knob.”

We insist you cease these activities immediately. You are to stop discussing Mr. Weiland online and in public and we require that you forward written confirmation to us affirming that you will do so (please see attached template). Severe legal consequences will ensue if you fail to comply with this demand. Your activities against Mr. Weiland constitute harassment and incitement to harass and have had an increasingly deleterious impact on our client’s quality of life. Mr. Weiland is prepared to pursue criminal and/or civil legal remedies should these activities against him continue.

This letter is the first and only warning you will receive.

Sincerely,

Amanda Cowan, Esq.

Hi Erica, me again. Whew, this whole thing has sort of blown up, hasn’t it? I’m sure you were as dumbstruck as I was to see the segment on MSNBC last night, however brief it was. It’s amazing what passes as news these days, but I guess that’s the age we live in now. I know you never intended for it to go this far. I’m not totally lacking in a sense of humor (you’ll remember, I’m sure, that brief but intense limerick writing phase I went through back in Ottawa) and as difficult as this process has sometimes been for me, I do see the joke. The other day I even caught Andrea chuckling at your Instagram feed. It took me a minute, but pretty soon I was chuckling right along with her. So believe me, I get it. The culture is going through some kind of catharsis right now I guess, and catharsis isn’t always a logical or intellectual process — sometimes it just involves venting. Society needs its whipping boys and when I consider how easy I’ve had it up to this point as white, male etc., I realize there are worse things than being made the butt of a joke — even a joke that’s gone viral.

So I’m trying to be sanguine about all this. But I realize sending a letter from my lawyer was not a particularly sanguine move, and I’m sorry about that. Amanda isn’t even really my lawyer — I mean, she is a lawyer, but she’s Andrea’s sister (they’re twins). She advised me the letter might not be a good idea (let that be a lesson to me: believe women!) but I was feeling a little at my wits end last week, so I asked her to put her own spin on some boilerplate language and stick on her firm’s letterhead. It struck me, reading it over afterwards, that maybe she’d had a little too much fun with it, but then I thought that was probably okay — really the letter was meant to be nothing but a friendly warning and I hoped you would take it in that spirit.

As I said, things were stressful last week. There’ve been a few crank calls and I had some students walk out of my class. There was even an impromptu sit-in outside the Chair’s office so, you know. It felt like maybe not everyone was getting the joke.

Anyway, now that we’ve had our designated fifteen minutes of fame, I’m looking forward to getting back to my life, as I’m sure you are too. This has been a real learning process for me, and I promise you I’ve taken a good hard look at myself since your essay was published. As difficult as it’s been at times, I’d like to think the experience has made me a better man, husband and father. On that note, Kenz is in the next room, calling for me to tell her a story before bed, so I’d better sign off. She’s been a real ray of sunshine throughout all this — I like to think we’ve done a pretty good job of shielding her from it so far.

I wish you all the best, Erica. Eager to see what you’ll do next with your new high profile. It’s so impressive how your sensibility seems to have sparked with this new generation — perhaps you’ve been ahead of your time all these years! Is a book in the works? (I was such a fan of your poetry back in our Ottawa days — would love to see you get back to that.)

Gary

Erica, I don’t know if you’re checking email, but listen I had no idea who this Rand-o guy was when I agreed to the interview and I am truly, truly horrified by what’s happened. Rand-o’s been in touch on and off for a while now and he came across as sympathetic and thoughtful in his emails. I guess I was just feeling frustrated after your appearance on Good Morning America as I honestly assumed you would have gotten all this out of your system by now. Plus, I was floored that any respectable news organization would hold up our personal internet dust-up as something “emblematic” of the “cultural moment” — that had me doing an actual spit-take (which Kenz found hilarious). So, yes, I acted rashly when it came to Rand-o. I didn’t do my due diligence.

Certainly, all I had to do was type his name into Google (as Andrea has constantly been reminding me) but who would have dreamt this guy had such a massive following? I was astounded by what they said on the news — three hundred thousand plus followers on Twitter? Conferences, a book deal? He was charmer, absolutely, but when we Skyped I thought — Oh Christ, he’s just some kid in his basement, right down to the vintage movie posters on the wall behind him (guy has a major fixation on Ghostbusters). Not to mention the toys — actual toys — on the shelves. I’d felt so ridiculous for having agreed to the interview — he looked barely out of braces. Anyway, I hope your mom is ok. Andrea tells me this swatting thing is a pretty common tactic of the “Randovians”, but I promise you I had no idea. I read she was taken to the hospital after the incident but released a few hours later, which hopefully means she wasn’t injured? And I dearly hope the damage to the house was minimal.

I know you need to keep a low profile right now, but I’d encourage you to get in touch once the dust settles. I think our only option at this point is to present a united front. We should release a joint statement saying that you forgive me for my part in all this and I forgive you for yours and that we’ve reconciled our differences. It’s the only way this ends.

Gary

Really? You’re just going to issue random communiqués from your underground internet bunker from here on in? How long do you think you can keep this up? Some of us, here above ground, have lives we’d like to get back to. I’m off work for the remainder of the semester thanks to all this. Students have started boycotting my classes en masse. The administration would dearly love to get rid of me at this point, especially after my impromptu speech in the quad — maybe you caught it on Facebook Live? (I had no idea someone was recording me, by the way — but then again someone’s always recording these days, aren’t they?) I was actually pretty impressed it got so many views. Good Morning America didn’t exactly come calling in the aftermath, but a few other people did, and I am weighing my options.

All right, stay underground if that’s what you want, Erica. And pop your head up like a feral gopher to bare your teeth at me online whenever the spirit moves you. Just know that you can come out anytime. You can end this. We can end this together — all we have to do is tell the world that I am sorry and you forgive me. And that I forgive you, too, for making such an outlandish stink about all this. (Sorry but I think that needs to be said as well, since it’s become a major issue in certain circles — as I’m sure you have noticed. If we genuinely want to de-escalate, those circles will have to be appeased).

So why the hell don’t we?

Gary

PS — I don’t suppose you’ve noted all the renewed interest in Hollister? A former classmate sent me a link — apparently some publisher is reissuing Psalms of Kanata. So congrats! It would seem the “great male author” is ascendant once more, all thanks to your efforts.

Okay so if I’m interpreting your latest post correctly, the sticking point seems to be that you don’t believe I’ve actually been sincere in anything I’ve said thus far about what happened FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS AGO back in Ottawa. And that I’ve “glossed over” what you call my “actual wrongdoing.” Oh my god. This is amazing to me. As thoughtful, careful and abject as I’ve been in the absurd amount of emails I sent to you — emails you haven’t even dignified with a response — and for all my self-flagellation and prostration at the altar of your fathomless feminine rage, nothing I’ve said has been good enough. Cool, cool. Good to know. Guess I can get up off my knees now.

It’s been good to have this time off work and really think about this crusade of yours and the toxic pathology behind it. Andrea and I discussed it at length but she got weary of the subject after a while, which I can’t blame her for — unfortunately, unlike her, I don’t have the luxury of tuning all this out. It’s helped a lot to talk about it online — there are a stunning number people out there who are quite happy to chat with me about it deep into the night. There are wingnuts, sure, like some of Rand-o’s boys, but there are a great many more generous, compassionate individuals on the internet than I originally gave it credit for. I’ve explained to them that even though I’m not teaching right now, I’m still getting paid, but they can’t seem shake the idea that I’ve been kicked out of my job (that’s why 4chan posted your boss’s phone number and your work address if I’m not mistaken? Which I did not encourage btw). Anyway, they insisted on raising money. The level of support has been really staggering, not to mention clarifying. To know I have so many people on my side in this. You’re just one person, Erica. One person who interpreted my actions a certain way, many years ago. I remember things differently. And I have as many people on my side in this as you do on yours. Maybe more, I’m starting to realize.

So I’ve decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I have lots of time on my hands right now, especially with Andrea and Kenz taking a break down in Florida with Andrea’s parents, so I’m thinking it might be time to put together a book, maybe using the last couple of speeches I gave as a jumping off point. (Don’t know if you caught the most recent one — over 200k views!) As you may recall from our Ottawa days, I’ve always wanted to try my hand at something book-length. A crossover book — every academic’s dream, as Hollister used to say. Poor old Hollister — he always used to wax a little melancholic about his reputation whenever we got together for drinks back in the day. Too bad he didn’t live to bask in the attention he’s getting now. Then again, I’m not sure he’d know how to handle it. In a way, I’m grateful for my crash course in all things internet these past few months. It’s been painful at times, but it was a wakeup call. I really do feel more equipped than ever to embrace a wider audience. I guess I just never had the material before now.