Why Oprah is on my Sh*t List
Because I am a writer and I want her to like me. Because if *I* wrote a memoir you can bet she'd be the very first person I made sure had a copy. Even before my mother, my grandmother and God. Oprah would read my book. And with a mere mention on her over-hyped program, I would be famous.
I say this because I want the world to know I WAS READING "PILLARS OF THE EARTH" BEFORE OPRAH TOLD ME TO! To prove it to anyone on the New York City subway who happens to read the cover of my book while I'm commuting to work, I'm not even reading one of the new, giantic copies that have suddenly sprouted up like babies nine months after a blizzard. (Oh! Isn't that the latest Oprah book?) Christ. I'm reading an old-skool mass-market paperback edition that has yellowed pages and a torn cover. It looks like a well-loved Steven King novel. It is my shield of literary street cred against all that is Oprah.
Because let's face it. She has great taste in books. At least she endorses books that I think are worth reading like 75% of the time. The James Frey thing was unfortunate, and I totally lust after and envy Joanthan Franzen for having the integrity to tell her she couldn't put her stickers on "The Corrections." Which was brilliant and sardonic and everything a book about family should be. Of course she wanted to put her name on "The Corrections." She's the King Midas of book readers. Every page she touches turns to gold. Who else could get 21st century middle-aged housewives to read Tolstoy and John Steinbeck?
I hate that.
I say this because I want the world to know I WAS READING "PILLARS OF THE EARTH" BEFORE OPRAH TOLD ME TO! To prove it to anyone on the New York City subway who happens to read the cover of my book while I'm commuting to work, I'm not even reading one of the new, giantic copies that have suddenly sprouted up like babies nine months after a blizzard. (Oh! Isn't that the latest Oprah book?) Christ. I'm reading an old-skool mass-market paperback edition that has yellowed pages and a torn cover. It looks like a well-loved Steven King novel. It is my shield of literary street cred against all that is Oprah.
Because let's face it. She has great taste in books. At least she endorses books that I think are worth reading like 75% of the time. The James Frey thing was unfortunate, and I totally lust after and envy Joanthan Franzen for having the integrity to tell her she couldn't put her stickers on "The Corrections." Which was brilliant and sardonic and everything a book about family should be. Of course she wanted to put her name on "The Corrections." She's the King Midas of book readers. Every page she touches turns to gold. Who else could get 21st century middle-aged housewives to read Tolstoy and John Steinbeck?
I hate that.
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