Sharp

by Michelle Dean

  First, “everyone I know” occurs fourteen times: “Polemic and the New Reviewing,” New Yorker, July 4, 1964.

  Though I may have read things: Irving Kristol, “On Literary Politics,” New Leader, August 3, 1964.

  Word came that Mrs. Viola Liuzzo: “Letter from Selma,” New Yorker, April 10, 1965.

  East Coast’s Joan Didion: Jesse Kornbluth, “The Quirky Brilliance of Renata Adler,” New York, December 12, 1983.

  a growing fringe of waifs: “Fly Trans Love Airways,” New Yorker, February 25, 1967.

  He began to yodel: Ibid.

  I am part of an age group: Introduction to Toward a Radical Middle: Fourteen Pieces of Reporting and Criticism (Dutton, 1971).

  Even if your idea of a good time: “A Teutonic Striptease,” New Yorker, January 4, 1968.

  among the most fond: “Norman Mailer’s Mailer,” New York Times, January 8, 1968.

  Renata Adler, of the New York Times, did not like: This advertisement was quoted by the court in Adler v. Condé Nast Publications, Inc., 643 F. Supp. 1558 (S.D.N.Y. 1986).

  Both her supporters and detractors: Lee Beauport, “Trade Making Chart on Renata Adler; but Some Like Her Literary Flavor,” Variety, March 6, 1968.

  One of the things democracy may be: “How Movies Speak to Young Rebels,” New York Times, May 19, 1968.

  Maybe it is an anti-Mummy reflex: “Science + Sex = Barbarella,” New York Times, October 12, 1968.

  learn to write to deadline: Interview with Christopher Bollen, Interview, August 14, 2014.

  spoke with a kind of awe: Pitch Dark (NYRB Classics, 2013), 5.

  Whatever their other motives: Renata Adler, Reckless Disregard: Westmoreland v. CBS et al.; Sharon v. Time (Knopf, 1986).

  she too often surrenders: Ronald Dworkin, “The Press on Trial,” New York Review of Books, February 26, 1987.

  claimed she had snowed them: See Robert Gottlieb, Avid Reader: A Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016), 220.

  comically incurious: Gone, 203.

  an explosion of pain and anger: Robert Gottlieb, “Ms. Adler, the New Yorker, and Me,” New York Observer, January 17, 2000.

  contrary to his reputation: Gone, 125.

  If I did not wish to “disclose” my “sources”: “A Court of No Appeal,” Harper’s, August 2000.

  The six-volume Starr Report: “Decoding the Starr Report,” Vanity Fair, February 1999.

  I’ve said it all along: Rachel Cooke, “Renata Adler: ‘I’ve Been Described as Shrill. Isn’t That Strange?’“ Guardian, July 7, 2013.

  Chapter Fourteen: Malcolm

  Almost everyone else in the analytic world: In the Freud Archives (Knopf, 1983), 35.

  Everything he said and thought: Ibid., 133

  the kindergarten teacher saying: “Janet Malcolm: The Art of Nonfiction No. 4,” interview with Katie Roiphe, Paris Review, Spring 2011.

  I went to see: “A Star Is Borne,” New Republic, December 24, 1956.

  Outside the theatre: “Black and White Trash,” New Republic, September 2, 1957.

  it is hard to tell about this: Letter to the editor by James F. Hoyle, New Republic, September 9, 1957.

  the leading authorities everywhere: Letter to the editor by Hal Kaufman, New Republic, September 30, 1957.

  awful nuisance: “D. H. Lawrence and His Friends,” New Republic, February 3, 1958.

  One is forced to add: Letter to the editor by Norman Mailer, New Republic, March 9, 1959.

  Our children are a mirror of belief: “Children’s Books for Christmas,” New Yorker, December 17, 1966.

  I don’t know how Dr. Lasagna: “Children’s Books for Christmas,” New Yorker, December 14, 1968.

  In any case, a woman who chooses: “Help! Homework for the Liberated Woman,” New Republic, October 10, 1970.

  As for those that raise questions of substance: “No Reply,” New Republic, November 14, 1970.

  who, as yet, is better known for his wife: “About the House,” New Yorker, March 18, 1972.

  Rereading these essays: Preface to Diana and Nikon (Aperture, 1997).

  The [Walker] Evans book: “Slouching Towards Bethlehem, Pa.,” New Yorker, August 6, 1979.

  Innocently opening the book: “Artists and Lovers,” New Yorker, March 12, 1979.

  Family therapy will take over: “The One-Way Mirror,” New Yorker, May 15, 1978.

  The empty couch: Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession (Knopf, 1977), 47.

  mischievous: Joseph Adelson, “Not Much Has Changed Since Freud,” New York Times, September 27, 1981.

  I was attracted to psychoanalytic work: Psychoanalysis, 110.

  an intellectual gigolo: Ibid., 41.

  what Anna Freud once said to me: Ibid., 38.

  a masterwork of character assassination: https://www.salon.com/2000/02/29/malcolm/.

  I wonder if he ever cared: Ibid., 163.

  The portrait, in fact: Letter to the editor by Janet Malcolm, New York Times, June 1, 1984.

  numerous commentators: See, e.g., Robert Boynton, “Who’s Afraid of Janet Malcolm?” Mirabella, November 1992, available at http://www.robertboynton.com/articleDisplay.php?article_id=1534.

  I should have known: “Janet Malcolm: The Art of Nonfiction No. 4.”

  Any journalist who is not too stupid: The Journalist and the Murderer (Vintage, 1990), 3.

  Well, it was a bit of rhetoric: I remember this remark from Malcolm’s appearance with Ian Frazier at the New Yorker Festival on September 30, 2011.

  He is a kind of confidence man: The Journalist and the Murderer, 3.

  Miss Malcolm appears: Albert Scardino, “Ethics, Reporters, and the New Yorker,” New York Times, March 21, 1989.

  fellow workers recording politicians’ doings: Ron Grossman, “Malcolm’s Charge Turns on Itself,” Chicago Tribune, March 28, 1990.

  David Rieff stuck up for her: David Rieff, “Hoisting Another by Her Own Petard,” Los Angeles Times, March 11, 1990.

  What Janet Malcolm was saying: Nora Ephron in the Columbia Journalism Review, July 1, 1989.

  I thought Malcolm’s articles were marvelous: Jessica Mitford in the Columbia Journalism Review, July 1, 1989.

  confession of Malcolm’s sins: John Taylor, “Holier Than Thou,” New York, March 27, 1989.

  Masson was too honest: David Margolick, “Psychoanalyst Loses Libel Suit Against a New Yorker Reporter,” New York Times, November 3, 1994.

  Who hasn’t felt pleasure: “Janet Malcolm: The Art of Nonfiction No. 4.”

  then dropping him again: “The Morality of Journalism,” New York Review of Books, March 1, 1990.

  Unlike the “I” of autobiography: The Journalist and the Murderer, 159–60.

  Forty-One False Starts: See article of that title in the New Yorker, July 11, 1994.

  She had once: The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes (Vintage, 1995), 13.

  official history: Letter from Ted Hughes, quotes in The Silent Woman, 53.

  I saw what he was getting at: Ibid., 48.

  At lunch I made a mess: Letter from Janet Malcolm to Susan Sontag, dated October 3, 1998, in the Susan Sontag Archive at UCLA.

  I had formed the idea of writing: “A Girl of the Zeitgeist,” New Yorker, October 20, 27, 1986.

  Afterword

  Exceptional women in my generation: Speech given by Mary McCarthy at City Arts and Lectures, San Francisco, October 1985, quoted in Kiernan, Seeing Mary Plain, 710.

  To read such a book: Adrienne Rich, “Conditions for Work: The Common World of Women,” in On Lies, Secrets and Silence (Norton, 1979).

  simple-minded: Adrienne Rich and Susan Sontag, “Feminism and Fascism: An Exchange,” New York Review of Books, March 20, 1975.

  That piece was about: Interview with Christopher Bollen, undated, available online at http://www.christopherbollen.com/archive/joan_didion.pdf.

  When you are all alone: Arendt, Varnhagen, 218.

  Index

  Abel, Lionel

  Abzug, Bella

&nbs
p; Acocella, Joan

  Adams, Franklin P.

  Adler, Renata. See also specific works

  appearance of

  Arendt and

  awards and honors

  background

  characteristics

  colleagues’ opinions of

  Gopnik and

  Gottlieb and

  Kael and

  McCarthy and

  media reporting of falsehoods and

  New Yorker and

  New York Times and

  ostracization of

  Podhoretz and

  suit against Washington Journalism

  Review

  Vanity Fair and

  Adorno, Theodor

  Advertisements for Myself (Mailer)

  Against Interpretation (Sontag)

  “Against Interpretation” (Sontag)

  Against Our Will (Brownmiller)

  Ainslee’s

  Aitken, William Maxwell (Lord Beaverbrook)

  Algonquin Round Table

  beginning of

  Kael and talents at

  members

  West and

  women at

  Allen, Woody

  Alvarez, Al

  Andrews, Henry

  Ann Veronica (Wells)

  anti-Semitism. See also Nazism

  Arendt and

  in France

  Heidegger and

  in US

  “Any Porch” (Parker)

  Arbus, Diane

  Arendt, Hannah. See also specific works

  Adler and

  on aims of Varnhagen biography

  anti-Semitism and

  arrest by Nazis

  background

  “banality of evil,”

  on The Benefactor

  on Benjamin’s suicide

  biography of Varnhagen

  Blücher and

  Arendt, Hannah characteristics

  on collaboration with Nazis

  colleagues’ opinion of

  “conscious pariahs,”

  death

  difficulty writing in English

  on distinction of being Jewish

  early newspaper articles

  essays on existentialism

  feminism and

  Heidegger and

  internment camp in France

  on Kazin

  living conditions in US

  marriage

  McCarthy and

  Partisan Review and

  political theory of

  relationship between good and evil

  reputation

  school desegregation and

  Sontag and

  Arendt, Martha

  Arendt, Paul

  Arlen, Alice

  Atlantic Monthly

  “At Valladolid” (West)

  Aufbau

  auteurist theory

  “A Woman’s Beauty: Put-Down or Power Source?” (Sontag)

  Axel’s Castle (Wilson)

  Baldwin, James

  “banality of evil,”

  Barringer, Felicity

  Barthes, Roland

  Battleaxe

  Beatty, Warren

  Beaverbrook, Lord (William Maxwell Aitken)

  Behrman, S. N.

  Bell, Vanessa

  Bellow, Saul

  Benchley, Robert

  The Benefactor (Sontag)

  Benhabib, Seyla

  Benjamin, Walter

  Berlin, Isaiah

  Bernays, Edward

  Bernstein, Carl

  “Big Blonde” (Parker)

  “The Big Rock Candy Figgy Pudding Pitfall” (Didion)

  The Birth of a Nation

  Bishop, Elizabeth

  Bitter Fame (Stevenson)

  Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (West)

  Blücher, Heinrich

  Bogdanovich, Peter

  Bonnie and Clyde

  A Book of Common Prayer (Didion)

  “Book Reviewing and Everyone I Know” (Podhoretz)

  Books

  Botsford, Gardner

  Briefing for a Descent into Hell (Lessing)

  Broadwater, Bowden

  Brooks, Louise

  Broughton, James

  Brownmiller, Susan

  Buchman, Sidney

  Buckley, William F.

  Burke, Billie

  Burke, Kenneth

  Burroughs, William S.

  Caesar’s Wife (Maugham)

  camp

  Campbell, Alan

  Canetti, Elias

  Cannibals and Missionaries (McCarthy)

  Castle, Terry

  Cavett, Dick

  Chaplin, Charlie

  Charade

  Chase, Edna Woolman

  Chicago Tribune

  The Children’s Hour (Hellman)

  Christian Science Monitor

  Cinema Guild

  “Circles and Squares” (Kael)

  Citizen Kane

  City Lights

  civil rights

  Clarion

  Columbia Journalism Review

  Commentary

  Communism

  Blücher and

  Cowley as “megaphone for,”

  Hellman and

  McCarthy and

  Parker and

  Partisan Review and

  Rahv and

  similarities to Fascism

  Sontag accused of favoring

  in US

  The Company She Keeps (McCarthy)

  Condé Nast

  “conscious pariahs”

  African Americans as

  The Origins of Totalitarianism and

  Phillips and Rahv as

  refugees in US as

  Varnhagen as among

  Con Spirito

  Constant Reader

  Cosmopolitan

  Cowley, Malcolm

  Crazy Salad (Ephron)

  “Crisis in Education” (Arendt)

  Crowninshield, Frank

  Crowther, Bosley

  “Dealing with the uh, Problem” (Ephron)

  Dean, John

  Death Kit (Sontag)

  Democracy (Didion)

  The Destruction of the European Jews (Hilberg)

  Diana and Nikon (Malcolm)

  The Dick Cavett Show

  Didion, Eduene

  Didion, Frank

  Didion, Joan. See also specific works

  Allen and

  awards and honors

  background

  characteristics

  children

  Ephron and

  essays after Saturday Evening Post folded

  fame

  feminism and

  filmmaking

  Gurley Brown and

  Kael and

  Kauffmann and

  literary persona

  marriage

  McCarthy and

  National Review and

  New York Review of Books and

  personal columns

  Saturday Evening Post and

  second wave of feminism and

  sources of writers’ material

  discrimination. See racism

  Dissent

  Donoghue, Denis

  Dos Passos, John

  Dukakis, Michael

  Dunne, John Gregory

  filmmaking

  Kael and

  marriage

  Saturday Evening Post column

  in writings of Didion

  Dunne, Quintana Roo

  Dupee, Fred

  Duras, Marguerite

  “The Duty of Harsh Criticism” (West)

  Earle, Willie

  Eckford, Elizabeth

  Eichmann, Adolf

  Eichmann in Jerusalem (Arendt)

  Eisenhower, Julie Nixon

  Eissler, Kurt

  Ellison, Ralph

  El Salvador

  Encounter

  Enough Rope (Parker)

  Ephron, Henry

  Ephron, Nora. See also speci
fic works

  articles for women’s magazines

  background

  characteristics

  death

  Didion and

  Esquire and

  fame

  feminism and

  Gurley Brown and

  Hellman and

  Malcolm and

  marriages

  at Newsweek

  Parker and

  as reporter

  reputation as social critic

  as screenwriter

  writing in first person

  Ephron, Phoebe

  Epstein, Barbara

  Epstein, Jason

  Esquire

  Didion and

  Ephron and

  Kael and

  Parker and

  Sontag and

  Evergreen Review

  Everywoman delusion

  existentialism, Arendt’s essays on

  Fairfield, Charles

  Fairfield, Cicely Isabel. See West, Rebecca

  Fairfield, Isabella

  “Fantasies of the Art-House Audience” (Kael)

  “Farewell to the Enchanted City” (“Goodbye to All That,” Didion)

  Farrar, Straus and Giroux

  “Fascinating Fascism” (Sontag)

  Fascism. See also Nazism

  “A Feast for Open Eyes” (Sontag)

  feminism. See also suffragettes

  Arendt and

  defiance of gendered expectations,

  Didion and

  Ephron and

  Kael and

  Malcolm and

  McCarthy and

  Millett and

  Parker and

  Phoebe Ephron and

  psychoanalysis and

  sexism in journalists’ assignments

  sexism in reviews of Didion’s Slouching

  Towards Bethlehem

  sexism of auteur critics

  Sontag and

  Vanity Fair and

  Wells as supporter

  West and

  women in war and

  Ferber, Edna

  “A Few Words About Breasts” (Ephron)

  Film Culture

  Final Solution

  The Fire Next Time (Baldwin)

  Firestone, Shulamith

  Fitzgerald, Ellen

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott

  FitzGerald, Frances

  Fitzgerald, Zelda

  “The Flapper” (Parker)

  Fornés, María Irene

  “Forty-One False Starts” (Malcolm)

  Franny and Zooey (Salinger)

  Freewoman

  Fresno Bee

  Freud, Anna

  Friedan, Betty

  Gardiner, Muriel

  Gellhorn, Martha

  Germany, Nazi

  Final Solution

  intellectuals and

  mass self-deception and delusion

  Nuremberg trials

  takeover

  West on

  Germany between World Wars

  Gilliatt, Penelope

  “A Girl of the Zeitgeist” (Malcolm)