Some
writers should be ashamed of themselves.
The other day I was taking a little
mini-vacation on my front porch, reading an anthology of stories, essays, and
short memoir pieces from Montana. There were lots of fishing stories. Most of
the writers, understandably, worried about the purity of Montana waters and
whether enough open space would be preserved to allow continued wilderness
experience. We worry about the same things here in Michigan (a much more
populous state), so I was sympathetic.
Then
I came to a story – a true story, I’m sorry to say – that left me, by
its end, without any sympathy whatever for the writer. He had gone on a cross-country
road trip with another writer (the second writer’s name was one you would all
recognize, though I’m happy to say I never met the man), and the entire trip
was one drunken blur. By day in the car, by night in the bar, they drank their
way down the highway.
Drunken
driving is bad enough, but that wasn’t all. The
famous
writer had another reprehensible foible. He loved to sneak out of restaurants without
paying.
Mind you, this was not some starving writer – his
reputation was well established, his wisdom sought by students. But he
strategically chose his restaurants, and he instructed the other writer, who
was driving, on where to park before they went in for their meal, with the
intention of skipping out on the bill. I
was disgusted, repelled and sickened by the story.
The writer of the essay, who was the
driver on the trip in lieu of the obvious alcoholic, says he was bothered by the famous writer’s assumption that
he, the writer-driver, would be complicit in cheating the restaurants and
waitresses of their due compensation. And yet – time after time -- he complied! And then he wrote
and published
the story of the shameful behavior, with both their
names attached! As if he were only a reporter, giving an account of two
completely different people. I am being kinder to the two than they were to
themselves, by omitting their names from this blog post.
I
don’t understand. I don’t understand their behavior in the first place. They
weren’t teenagers, either: they were both married men with wives and children.
Acting like total jerks. And then publishing the account? As if to say, “Weren’t
we wild and crazy guys? Weren't we exciting, naughty little boys?” No, you were jerks!
My writer friends, I say
without hesitation, are a different breed – honest, hard-working, even
generous. I’ll bet anything they overtip waitresses. Some of them have worked
as waitresses themselves, but none of them would behave in this manner.
The
story turned me off reading anything else, ever, by either writer. Even the famous
writing school, their destination, seemed ever so slightly smudged by
association, but I’m going to try to get past that. It was not the school’s
fault.
But
really! Does anyone think such reprehensible behavior is somehow the mark of
genius? Ha! More like a couple of guys who can’t manage to be grownups.
Postscript, 14 July: I have changed my mind, due to Maiya's comment. I would not want anyone to imagine the wrong people in this story! The book (overall a wonderful book!) is The Big Sky Reader: A Treasury of the Best Writing From Big Sky Journal, edited by Allen Jones & Jeff Wetmore. The disgusting essay, "Ridin' With Ray," was written by Jon A. Jackson, and his road trip buddy was Raymond Carver.
