Gawker
Meghan O'Rourke is having a moment. Her first book of poems, recently published, snagged a coveted full-page review—a rave!—in the Times Book Review. She is the culture editor of Slate. She's in the midst of planning her wedding to New Yorker staff writer James Surowiecki. It's a happy time for Meghan. But while this successful 30ish lady has her share of admirers, she also has her share of critics. An anonymous emailer sums up his concerns like so:
It's not enough that she got her powerful perch at Slate at, like, 26 on the strength of —well, on the strength of what, exactly?—and that her first book of poetry (please) gets a review in the Sunday Times book review (because she's infinitely better than the 300 poetry MFAs churned out every year), but her journalism is absolutely insufferable: a minute examination of her own traipsing, boring life with beau Jim Surowiecki, gussied up alternatively as "journalism" and "verse."
Let's take these criticisms point by point. It's true that Meghan did achieve a lot very young. But one can safely assume that she "got her powerful perch at Slate" on the strength of her previous career achievements, which include a stint at the New Yorker, where she became a a fiction/nonfiction editor at what her then-boss Bill Buford called the "alarmingly tender" age of 24. What got her to the New Yorker—an internship beginning the summer before her senior year at Yale, where she matriculated after graduating from prestigious Brooklyn prep school St. Ann's—is also impressive, and also, most certainly, part of the problem.
People seem to find in Meghan a symbol of many things: ambition, yes, but also privilege and unabashed intellectualism and a specific, even New York-specific, way of ostentatiously combining the three.
Oh, and did we mention she's also an attractive young woman?
As to whether Meghan's poetry is better or worse than the work of the "300 poetry MFAs churned out every year," we've got no idea. We haven't read Meghan's book. We probably never will! We haven't read the 300 MFAs work either, but if anyone has, it's Meghan—she is, after all, still poetry editor of the Paris Review, don't forget! One assumes that the Times wouldn't slight a poet who held such a position, regardless of his or her age or hotness. Those who gripe about Meghan seem less concerned that Meghan got reviewed so prominently; instead, it rankles that she has ended up in a position where her work demands to be reviewed prominently in the first place, which is kind of like asking why the Times Book Review chooses to write about... well, anyone.
So that leaves the third point: is Meghan's "journalism insufferable"? It is exceedingly easy to mock, and don't we know. Meghan brings her personal life into her book reviews regularly. For example, in her review of Rebecca Mead's One Perfect Day: The Selling Of The American Wedding, we find this sentence: "Trying on a lavish dress bedecked with almost imperceptible crystals, I found myself strangely smitten—and telling my fiance about it, he said, 'Maybe you really like planning this wedding.'" Such intimate details find their way into Meghan's analyses of other people's work almost always. Her biographical details are presented without faux-modesty or apology. In fact, her confessions often read as just too sincere.
This sincerity seems to baffle Meghan's critics. Maybe the problem is that sincerity is such an increasingly rare mode of communication that when we see it, we almost don't know how to react. "I went to college in the early days of the 'hookup' culture, as it is now called, and my recollection, through the haze of years, was that the whole point of hookups was that they were pleasurable—a little embarrassing, sometimes, but mostly, well, fun," Meghan wrote recently in a review of a book about "hookup culture." We pilloried her, of course. But maybe the fact that we did proves a point. If everyone is just sarcastic and guarded and self-mocking all the time—as opposed to given over to "minute examinations[s] of [their] traipsing, boring lives"—then what would we have to work with, or think about?
Comments
The unexamined life is not worth mocking?
i'll say it: i'm jealous of her.
She spells her name with an "H" - for "hatorade," of course. Or is it "(w)hore"?
But, where does she stand on peanut butter?
I think more the point of the griping when she was coming up was that she was unquestionably editing and giving direction to people far more experienced and qualified than her. Not to say she wasn't qualified, but when even some New Yorker writers pine for full-time work, it begged a lot of questions. Now that's she's managed to focus on her navel with laser-beam accuracy, there's a whole new set of "hunhs?" to deal with.
Is she any relation to P.J. O'Rourke?? That would genuinely make her enviable. Seems like a chick I'd like to party with -- a CILP, if you will. Spin that into an ode, Meghan.
My only consolation is the hope that she will end up looking like Shane McGowan by the time she's 40.
(Because, you know, she's Irish-ish, and - yeah, okay, that's stupid. I hate her.)
...so Gould, did the abyss look back at you, or what?
She is undoubtedly very smart and accomplished and pretty and well-read. She is also a calculating schmoozer, painful to watch--a literary Olivia Palermo, if you will.
That was really sweet of you, the way you defended Meghan O'Rourke against that vicious email we never would've read if you hadn't posted it. "Some people say Meghan's a spoiled, talentless slut, but not us! No, sir!"
PS - when is the TBR going to get around to reviewing the Snorg Girl's novella?
@Sayser: Yeah, but not so much the recent aging rightie O'Rourke, but more the bygone author of "How to Drive Fast On Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink."
I wanted to like Meghan's poetry, I really did. But I can't forget how she acted when I landed in the same MFA program as her - she was not nice to the new girls and behaved eerily like something out of "Mean Girls." Sad, because the program is for "adults" who hadn't seen the inside of a high school cafeteria in many years (mercifully).
And the fact of the matter is, there are far better poets out there, just as young and annoying as Ms. O'Rourke, whose poetry just happens to be really really good. I just wish that sometimes, somewhere in our universe, talent could triumph over privilege and connections.
Silly me.
Can I just say that I like the increasingly frequent snark-free literary Emily? Makes me feel like I'm getting some Culture with my Gawker.
90% of the poets I know get published and written about and fawned over and noticed based on a combination of persistence, luck, and ass-kissing. This is nothing remarkable.
I'm sure she can spell "euphemism."
@Puff Eyelid:
Of course you can say it. We're in the trust tree.
@Puff Eyelid: I agree. I'm pro-sisterly-phase Emily. Although there does need to be a mean one, so hopefully Doree's game.
@oovy: Nope, but Balk is.
Is her ascendancy upsetting because the New Yorker and Paris Review are thought to immune to the charms of young underachievers? As for Slate, who was her predecessor?
It wasn't her educational bonafides that got her an internship and subsequent full-time gig at the New Yorker. There are plenty of smart, ambitious Ivy League via upper-crust New York prep school kids who could never land that type of gig. Inevitably, she knew someone. That's why people hate her.
Also, the posts have been wayyyy too long today.
if only Ms. Meghan were as sisterly as Emily.
And Lolaclaire is right, all poets are whores. Some just have better technique than others.
@puff: agreed. it's refreshing. like the 8th step of AA.
I got laid-off in dot-com land when I was the alarmingly tender age of 24, and all I got was a stupid anxiety disorder. Bitch.
supply/demand: there are infinitely more talented and privileged (never mind talented and non-privileged) young things seeking ny'er gigs than there are gigs at the ny'er ... sniping ensues no matter to whom the gig goes ... tho sometimes it goes to more special peeps and sometimes to less special ones
mfa programs should be closed by the bbb for fraudulent approaches to life ... unless mom and dad are buying you a nyc condo, there's not much of a future after those degrees
this is bullshit. it's fair game to note, snarkily, that she might not be much of a poet (who can tell, really, with poetry), and that her stature as an editor and critic of poetry can go a long way toward explaining the publication of her book of poetry (rather than someone else's) and the review of said book in the times. that the literary world is driven by connections is not exactly news, and unless someone wants to pony up evidence that ms. o'rourke slept her way to the top, i say shut the fuck up.
@emily: phew.
@if_i_only_had_a_heart: "there's not much of a future after those degrees"
It really depends on the kind of future you have in mind. I'm doing just fine, barely eking out a living as the number one patron at the only decent bar above 88th St.
@Lolaclaire:
rock on, lolaclaire; rock on
@herzen:
"(who can tell, really, with poetry),"
Believe me, you'll know.
"a stint at the New Yorker, where she became a fiction/nonfiction editor at what her then-boss Bill Buford called the "alarmingly tender" age of 24..." Honeys, if you want a clue to what's behind Ms. O'Rourke's admirable ascent, one might venture that Mr. Buford's known fondness for lasses of "tender alarm" may have had somethun to do with it...Yeeeouch!
@Puff Eyelid: Here, here! Three cheers for a Gawker editor who can turn the snark off sometimes.
how about licked her way to the top? is a distant relative of bareback top? is a huge fan of Top Gun?
but fucked her way to the top?
please stop.
(courtesy of your local MFA program)
@BangersandMashees: Cute and Catholic-nosed. I'd hit it. You can't fault Buford for taste.
If everyone is just sarcastic and guarded and self-mocking all the time-as opposed to given over to "minute examinations[s] of [their] traipsing, boring lives"-then what would we have to work with, or think about?
Someone needs to update the Gawker Commenter FAQ, pronto.
National Poetry Month ended, and here we are, still talking about poetry.
O'Rourke's book is okay. Your estimate of the annual yield of poetry MFAs is low. And yes, it drives people crazy to see a young woman get ahead.
I'd hit it. In the restroom at 11th Street Bar.
Meghan ain't gonna be happy when she sees you abbreviated the "Saint" in "Saint Ann's".
That's a big no-no.
@herzen: aw, this is just the yin to her yang. if she's going to so unabashedly exploit her privilege, she should expect people to call her on it.
ms. gould, that was almost as rad as your times op-ed piece. rock on.
@dntsqzthchrmn:
"it drives people crazy to see a young woman get ahead."
Is it not possible that this is about more than whether or not she has a vagina?
Unless of course, she writes persona poems as in the voice of her vagina.
@Clevertrousers: I'd even hit it in a bathroom stall at 11th Street Bar.
Damn. Now I've double posted.
@DeathOrGloryToad: Abso-effen-lutely. Or, "Tune In, Turn On, Go to the Office Late on Monday," the short piece about his first ecstasy trip -- hilarious.
The rest of my anonymous email read:
" . . . and even 'journalism' about her 'verse,' -- see here: http://www.slate.com/id/2162725/entry/2162726/ -- "complaining that her verse is often mistaken for journalism about herself -- which it is not (that's the job of her journalism about her verse)."
Which is true and annoying and well deserving of snark.
There are eerily similar parallels to Amanda Hesser here: both women are smart, talented, successful at a young age, and married to New Yorker staff writers. Oh, and cute to boot. It's really disturbing how jealousy moves people to tear down women who fit this bill, while the many men who do seems to skip by unnoticed. Probably because they're are so fucking many of them out there - the New Yorker, Slate et al are just teeming with men like this - and we hardly hear a peep about it.
"If everyone is just sarcastic and guarded and self-mocking all the time-as opposed to given over to 'minute examinations[s] of [their] traipsing, boring lives'-then what would we have to work with, or think about?"
Are you saying that we should be nicer to her because she serves up such deliciously sincere material for Gawker editors to pillory? I'm with Clarence on this one. My head hurts.
@lalalina: sure, the privileged are fair game, and where would we be without our schadenfreude, anyway. but anyone who writes anything for a big magazine, or goes to work at some place like the new yorker or slate, is probably exploiting their privilege one way or another--to take down all of those people would require too much time and energy.
@Puff Eyelid: For serious. I love that at:
"Oh, and did we mention she's also an attractive young woman?"
I was like, Oh, this is Emily. Gawker, culture, a side of femiladyism - I like it.
@clydes_muse: Anything's possible. For example, it's possible that she is a brilliant politician, a credible editor, and an okay writer.
Also, it's possible that she could have filled out an identical vita as a he, eliciting nasty anonymous e-mails just like the one Emily cited.
Wake me up she leaks her own sex tape featuring all 89 of the Radar interns.
I'm pretty sure she's not the culture editor at Slate anymore, might want to double-check your facts.