Tuesday 12 February 2019

It's Always 'White Men'. ALWAYS!!

A scoop for the New Yorker:
The magazine detailed the deceptions of Dan Mallory, who is the author, under the pseudonym AJ Finn, of the bestselling psychological thriller The Woman in the Window.
But his launch into authordom came after a career in publishing in London and New York, during which, the investigation found, Mallory had deceived colleagues, telling them a range of stories including that his mother had died of cancer (she is alive); his brother had killed himself (he is alive); and that he himself had suffered from brain cancer.
Mallory has admitted to some of this, saying that he used the excuse of brain cancer to cover up his shame at his real suffering from mental illness.
Man who invents fiction proves to have....well, invented a lot of fiction. And so?
His account would not explain instances where he inflated his professional experience to smooth his rapid advance up the ranks of publishing. When the immediate thrill of reading the New Yorker’s exposé had passed, many working in the industry reflected on what the story reveals about their profession.
And what's that?
While publishing as a whole is dominated by women, specifically white women, its most powerful positions are still mostly occupied by white men.
*blinks*

Yes. Clearly that's the thing to take from this.

2 comments:

Fahrenheit211 said...

BBC Radio Four was also climbing onto this story's bandwagon. I had hoped that the BBC would have had a more in depth discussion in the studio about authors and book industry types who invent interesting backstories. Sadly that was not the case. What we got was a very short piece on the scandal itself and very little discussion on Mallory's conduct and motivation, followed by a keening whinge from the presenter about 'diversity in the publishing industry' and how this scandal is a problem caused by too many white males in the publishing industry. As a programme this section could have been good but the middle class lefties with their middle class leftie diversity obsessions, turned it into utter cockrot.

JuliaM said...

"BBC Radio Four was also climbing onto this story's bandwagon."

I wish I could say that surprised me!