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The Writers in the Silos
It requires neither imagination nor acumen to predict that our current conglomerating, lowest-common-denominator, demographically targeted publishing industry will soon achieve its streamlined apotheosis—a single, worldwide, Exxon Mobil-owned literary empire offering a list of seven books twice per year. The lists for these two seasons—Holiday Gifts and Beach—will each include one of the following: a Dickensianly sprawling Antarctic thriller; a faux-intellectual, faux-experimental novel packaged with enticingly gimmicky swag (such as a French Existentialist pashmina); a World War II historical novel wherein one or more ex-Nazis, in the flash-forward sections, live as kindly sausage-makers or residually evil school teachers; a winningly bitchy PTA Tell-All, written by an over-educated mother of multiple-birth ADD children, living in a suburb of eco-friendly prefabs; a spiritual-conversion-after-brush-with-Ebola memoir; an inspiring life-lesson book for the left- or right-leaning (left for Holiday Gifts, right for Beach), written by a long-shot gay pro-life female minority ex-Klan presidential hopeful; and a “quick fire” cookbook for people with intimidatingly professional kitchens and no time, inclination or skills to cook in them.The Best Creative Nonfiction, Volume 2 / Issue 31 / Issue 35
The “L” Word—And All the Rest of Us “Outsiders”
In my memoir, Forever Fat, I tell the story of my bar mitzvah, during which I am tortured by the brown wool suit my mother forced me to wear.Issue 35