Tuesday 3/4/25
Why does it always have to be so stupid what these people write? And if it's not blatantly stupid, why does it have to be so blah?
But them's the rules of the system, with the biggest rule of all being that one must be like these people in terms of dearth of both ability and character, or one shall not be allowed--by these people--to pass.
A couple months ago, we had a popular prose off featuring a George Saunders story from The New Yorker. Saunders, according to the MacArthur people, is a genius. Oh. Well, prepare yourself for more of his undeniably genius writing, then. I'm sure we'll all think think that what we are about to read, to kick off this latest thrashing of a prose off, is the work of a genius.
On the same day that I had a story called "Find the Edges" accepted by Harper's--which I'm sure had a hand in that editor getting fired because the story that was better than the other stories in Harper's and was also by someone who is not one of these people--Scott Stossel, then the editor of The Atlantic, accepted a different story called "The Last Field," which later instigated a temper tantrum beneath the dignity of a four-year-old at Kenyon Review--more on this--and them--later. (Eh--I'm sure it will be fine and the relevant parties won't look ridiculous.)
Stossel is the same person who later told me that The Atlantic--because of all of the money they got from Steve Jobs' widow (not because they make any money)--was hiring all of these people as staff writers, and I was sure to be among them, and then later ducked me as I was being done dirty because, again, I am not one of these people, confessing to me that the guilt he felt for what he did to me kept him up at night.
I remarked that this wasn't right, I can't just stay silent about what's happening. He then said that if I made any public mention about how dirty I'd been done, I'd never write for The Atlantic again. He also called me a thug. Because these are totally sane, stable people. I know that he had a habit of self-medicating, but I don't know if that played a role.
Anyway, the story was un-accepted by then (and current) Atlantic literary editor (and indoor scarf fan) Ann Hulbert, who is basically the literary gestapo version of the country club gatekeeper. You better be able to prove connection and blue-bloodedness if you hope to gain entry to the fiction pages of The Atlantic.
Stossel told me that Hulbert thought in the terms of running work by someone because they were seen as "hot shit."
By whom? By people like these people in their evil, incestuous subculture.
George Saunders is exactly the kind of person that Hulbert will publish. Just as Paul Yoon is. Just as Jesmyn Ward is. Just as Lauren Groff is. As systematic as system people can be.
That's who she wants. Exclusively.
What follows is from a story called--fittingly enough, given the people we're talking about--"The Moron Factory," by George Saunders, which appears in the March 2025 issue of The Atlantic, thanks to Ann Hulbert.
April 20:
Sometimes feel life stinks, everything bad/getting worse, everyone doomed.
Then day like today occurs, reminding one that yes, although life stinks, does not always stink to same extent, i.e., variation can occur in extent to which life, from day to day, may stink.
Today strange.
Strange day at work.
Sally Gear = extremely tall co-worker with perpetual explosion of unbrushed gray hair. Nice lady. Many kids: three from previous marriage, four adopted. Plus, usually, one or two foster kids. Also 12 cats, nine dogs, five rescued ferrets, all living on run-down farm outside of town. Is always explaining: reason she looks so bad/ragged = totally swamped with kids/adopted kids/foster kids/pets/farm. Her husband, Sid, also tall, w/ same gray hair-explosion. When together, always laughing, leaning into each other, looking unkempt, happy, bellowing out story re latest wacky thing done by kid, foster kid, ferret, and/or donkey they keep tied to tree. When Sid comes to office to pick Sally up, will say, “So this is how they do it in the big city!” or “Say, this is one heckuva fancy orifice!” (Which is odd: Sid not country, Sid = Wesleyan grad, grew up in Philadelphia, family owned famous shoe store.)
This week, one of their foster kids selling candy bars for Swim Team. Sally has put box of candy bars in Break Area, with sign: DON’T BE ALL WET! BUY A CANDY BAR FROM TERRENCE.
Liv VanUster annoyed by presence of candy bars, emails Sally: this = place of business. How would Sally like it if she, Liv, brought in ton of magazines, encouraged all to buy magazines, for her Women’s Personal History Group? Sally says sure, no problem, she can just scoot candy bars over. What magazines do they have anyway? Any about ferrets/foster kids/growing organic vegetables in limited space?
Quite the corker! Sounds brilliant, brother. Wow. And glad you could get Wesleyan in there. I mean, thank Christ. No wonder you received a three-quarters of a million dollar check from the MacArthur people for being a genius.
Hey, Guggenheim people: I know you cut him a check for a comparatively paltry $40,000 and you can only be a one-time Guggenheim recipient, but I don't know...what about a codicil making an exception for a genius like this? Because he's clearly an amazing writer. I say you honor him again. It's not like that'd be less scrupulous than what you're already so plainly doing. Just a thought.
But what do I know? I don't suck at writing and I'm neither a classist nor a bigot.
I'm just a guy sitting here working on a story called "Comes a Day, Comes a Man." This is from it...
Having written down the percentage of his brain that he’d be able to give up and still know his name and what rain was, the man slid the piece of paper across the table between himself and the tyrant.
“No,” the tyrant said, pushing the paper back without looking at it. “It’s not enough.”
The tyrant made as if to clap—but stopped short of submitting to the task of actually bringing his hands together—and the man was ushered from the room by underlings and detained within another space until he could figure out something suitable.
Whenever he had an idea of what he could give, he rang a bell, effectively summoning himself.
Time and again he was brought in front of the tyrant to make an offer that was rejected before being returned to where they kept him.
He brainstormed. He got creative. He offered his heart (symbolically), his dreams (actually), his hopes (desperately).
But the tyrant wouldn’t budge.
Then came a day when the man was placed upon the carpet in front of the tyrant despite not having rung the bell, because there honestly wasn’t a single thing he could think of anymore.
His final effort had concerned a silver filling in a tooth at the back of his mouth. He’d offered it in part as a joke of madness and defiance resulting from his ordeal and some kind of commentary on what it had done to him, but also as if this were all a riddle that might be solved with a drop of precious metal from the very recess where his voice originated.
But the filling didn’t double as a solution, and again the tyrant—who at least paused, as if he might say something else, before laughing—concluded, “It’s not enough.”
And now there he was, despite laying off the bell.
“I can’t think of anything new,” the man told the tyrant, his words darkened with the knowledge of someone who knows they won’t really be heard. “I have suggested all.”
“Not all,” the tyrant corrected. “There’s more. There is always more.”
The man shrugged and dropped to his knees.
“Take what remains of my life,” he told the tyrant. “It can at least be all over.”
“That won’t do,” the tyrant countered, his tone instead crumbling what remained of the man’s heart. “You will go and get your wife.”
“Why?”
The tyrant didn’t have to answer to anyone, but he preferred to in this instance.
“Because it will mean more to me when I tell her to go and get your children.”
Well. What do you know. Here we are again where I have to say that I don't think anyone thinks that's very close. I don't think Ann Hulbert thinks it's very close. I don't think George Saunders would think it's very close. Because close is about the last thing it is.
Said the thug.
