Gawker 
Enter your username and password.
-
posts about #novelists more → 
Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage
New York, 6:06 AM
Mon Dec 7
15 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip Your Editors:
Tipline: 646-214-8138
Editor-in-Chief:
Gabriel Snyder |
West Coast Editor:
Richard Rushfield |
Contributing Editors:
Valleywag:
Ryan Tate |
Media:
Hamilton Nolan |
Politics:
Alex Pareene |
Investigations:
John Cook |
Entertainment:
Brian Moylan |
Nights:
Adrian Chen |
Azaria Jagger |
Ravi Somaiya |
Weekends:
Foster Kamer |
Video Editor:
Richard Blakeley |
| posts about #novelists more → |
Alice Hoffman's Non-Apology Apology for Her Bout of Twitter Rage |
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
06/30/09
06/30/09
06/30/09
06/30/09
06/30/09
Oh, so THAT's your excuse? Brilliant! It's as if you're arguing here that this was a crime of passion, and that you should be tried in the court of public opinion on a charge of manslaughter, in lieu homicide.
Sorry, toots. You're an adult. Unless you were drunky-high at the keyboard, there is no excuse for blasting 25+ tweets into the ether berating a reviewer. Thankfully, the current media news cycle has the attention span of a gnat, so you can rejoice in the fact that SOMEONE will ef up shortly, and you'll be left alone.
Cheerios!
PS: You know what else? Can you imagine someone like Rimbaud giving the proverbial two sh*ts or a f*ck about what his CRITICS said? Man, I miss those balls-out, full-on literary freaks who just did their thing, period.
06/30/09
It often takes a while to construct a statement or analysis that one really means to stand behind. With that in mind, I figure everyone gets a 24-hour grace period for first-draft thoughts, which can be discarded or disowned at whim. Such an approach would work wonders in bringing sanity to this situation, wouldn't it?
I mean, they're just tweets.
06/30/09
Ch-ch-ch-changes...
06/29/09
Ford then said, Now I don't read my reviews. Smart man.
Also much, much better writer.
06/29/09
06/30/09
06/29/09
06/30/09
06/29/09
06/29/09
1. Give yourself a nice kick in the ass
2. Realize that everyone fucks up and laugh at yourself
3. Apologize simply and directly to the person(s) affected by your fuck-up-ery
4. Mean it
5. Apologize more broadly/publicly if necessary
6. Mean it
7. Laugh at yourself again.
People will see that you aren't a professional asshole, just someone who fucked up. Why is this so hard?
06/30/09
So in the meantime (heh), non-apology apologies are probably enough to stop the runaway train, at least.
06/30/09
06/29/09
06/30/09
06/30/09
06/29/09
I sometimes wonder if authors whose reputations get their books published regardless of the quality of their work remember how many deserving authors in the slush pile aren't getting published at all.
06/29/09
06/29/09
Far from "pounding on" Hoffman, I think Cajun actually went a kind of easy on her. He only described her "apology" as "sort-of half-assed." In reality, it was downright terrible.
I mean, after calling a book critic a "moron" and publishing her phone number, she opens her so-called "apology" with the words: "I think this whole thing has been blown completely out of proportion ..."?
Moff is right: Rather than issue that petulant non-apology, she would have been better off not making any statement at all.
06/29/09
(Although in fact, Moff is very often right.)
06/29/09
But I also get that, justifiably or not, she's upset, and that it would be difficult to apologize directly to Silman, especially if Hoffman's not really feeling it. That doesn't mean she shouldn't do it! But I dunno...I get very weary of the whole moral-arbiter aspect of Gawker and the news media in general and the commentariat (despite the fact that, yes, I have absolutely contributed to it myself).
I hope Hoffman feels like an ass. I hope someday she looks back on today and is like, "God, I was such an ass," and runs into Roberta Silman somewhere and apologizes in person. But I don't hope it much; I'm not particularly invested.
What I hope more is that we gradually get off this train where we equally imperfect entities devote so much attention to publicly calling out other folks, like Hoffman here, for being flawed. Not because I'm so worried about how it affects them, but because I don't think it's healthy for us.
06/29/09
06/29/09
It just kind of gives me an icky twinge, as the Internet is wont to do sometimes. And I just thought I'd mention it, since the anti-Hoffman side down here (in the comments, I mean) seemed amply represented already.
06/30/09
06/30/09
But your comments here make me a little sad. This isn't some "goodbye to Gawker" thing you're doing, is it? Please tell me it isn't.
06/30/09
06/30/09
06/29/09
"this whole situation has been completely blown out of proportion"--It's your fault
"review which gave away the plot of the novel" -- Super hard to swallow
"Reviewers are entitled to their opinions and that's the name of the game in publishing" -- super bitter
"I hope my readers understand that I didn't mean to hurt anyone" --and if not, you have her number, so call her and let her know, b/c this is a political campaign.
06/30/09
But, wait, doesn't every review do that? Kid takes black guy down the Mississippi to escape and runs into some stuff along the way. Lady loses her position in society and determines to undergo some serious training. Family does reasonably well but then here comes Napoleon. Family does reasonably well and then here comes them yankees. Family does reasonably well and then here come the Snopes.
Every family is made unhappy the same way.
But I thought you weren't supposed to give away the ending? So somebody should. Who has a copy of the Hoffman special?
06/29/09
BURN!
06/29/09
06/30/09
06/29/09
06/30/09