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Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"
I don't think the person who made that understands what "highbrow" means, they seem to be using it to mean "interesting" or something. ("Of course, because I'm highbrow so what I find interesting is.") I think it's funny that Joe somewhat picked up on it but didn't realize it really so just took shots at Trump being that high.
We all know it’s little more than a paid ad in New York’s culture axis, or whatever they’re calling it these days (way, way back Spy used to parody these.) I just find it funny Mal is couched between two dead (or nearly dead) guys and both are also considered “highbrow”.
We all know it’s little more than a paid ad in New York’s culture axis, or whatever they’re calling it these days (way, way back Spy used to parody these.) I just find it funny Mal is couched between two dead (or nearly dead) guys and both are also considered “highbrow”.
Maybe Mal’s book agent/publisher green-lighted a little promo money in August, or the publisher agreed to run some paid ads in New York or sponsor some event they are holding.
I know when Glamour does their “top ten favorite beauty hacks for fall” it’s simply because the editors love the products, not ad placement. I’m sure New York mag editors actually read Daniel Lavery’s new novel, shop at the new Misha & Puff, are enjoying the Franz Liszt piano competition and watching Jimmy Fallon’s Halloween themed shows this month.
Tard Baby now has enough promotional appearances to call a book tour. Tard Baby being Tard Baby, the announcement has at least one typo in it. Seven of the nine are actually in person, which means someone foolishly gave the house tard a sock. Who will look after Bobby Joe now?
Tard Baby now has enough promotional appearances to call a book tour. Tard Baby being Tard Baby, the announcement has at least one typo in it. Seven of the nine are actually in person, which means someone foolishly gave the house tard a sock. Who will look after Bobby Joe now?
Joe is fuming that Mallory's publisher agreed to shell out a few bucks to help her promote the book, when Joe had to pay out of pocket to promote his one and only non-academic university press book. I'm convinced a nice chunk of Joe's debt is thanks to him wasting time and money on his terrible book. How could one expect Joe to teach at Berkeley for money when he had to write about his revolutionary transbian life? Is it really even a book unless you have a launch party with an open bar?!?
I wonder if Joe trucked boxes of his unsold books to MI. I'd bet everyone who visits LaLa gets a signed copy.
Looks like Mallory will be heading back to Brooklyn in just a few days. I wonder if Joe will tag along to his favorite city to support his beloved husband?
Honestly, this feels a bit last minute and hurried. She is just announcing some of these dates less than week out. Makes me think she had some other reason to be in NYC and an intern at HC was tasked with quickly finding some bookstores with nothing scheduled for the weeknights she was going to be in town. Her publisher has pull so just getting anyone there to make a few phone calls on her behalf will guarantee bookings.
I wonder if they are doing this because HC feels like the book isn't selling to its potential thus far. It's odd they wouldn't do this kind of stuff when the book launched, but I guess after seeing the sales figures (and comparing it to her previous books) they decided to invest a little more in promoting it.
I wonder if Joe trucked boxes of his unsold books to MI. I'd bet everyone who visits LaLa gets a signed copy.
Looks like Mallory will be heading back to Brooklyn in just a few days. I wonder if Joe will tag along to his favorite city to support his beloved husband?
I can't actually belive how bad that first line is.
It's like someone doing an impression of a painfully pretentious novelist. It could be in Private Eye. Multiple sections of, actually.
How has her complete and entire existence being utterly humiliated by the reality of her life, not imbued her with the tiniest crack in her self esteem that might get her closer to the thought "maybe every single idea I have for a line isn't utterly brilliant, and in fact might be a bit pretentious and shit?"
How you gonna Yoko someone and not manage to humble them even a tiny bit? Even a nessecary bit?
There has to be a name for her style of writing. Aside from just "bad", kek. It's circular. Rhythmically repetitive. Symmetrical? She nearly always says the same word a few different ways in a sing-song fashion. At first encounter it's novel and kinda interesting, but it gets twee and irritating really fast because she employs it endlessly. Is she paying homage to her fav Victorian writers in an insider academic way there? There's a certain feminine voice and tone goin' on there too. That Daniel M. Lavery really writes like a girl. How does he do that?!
She’s emotionally stuck at being a bookish, sexless 15 year old playing at sophistication, and her outpourings reflect that. Given she is in her late 30s, one could say her style is literally retarded.
She wants out of the throuple or they want her out. None of them will admit it. Watch, she and Joe are going to ‘grow apart’ as a result of this tour and he’ll ditch his tits to become a normal hetero couple with Lily.
She’s emotionally stuck at being a bookish, sexless 15 year old playing at sophistication, and her outpourings reflect that. Given she is in her late 30s, one could say her style is literally retarded.
There has to be a name for her style of writing. Aside from just "bad", kek. It's circular. Rhythmically repetitive. Symmetrical? She nearly always says the same word a few different ways in a sing-song fashion. At first encounter it's novel and kinda interesting, but it gets twee and irritating really fast because she employs it endlessly. Is she paying homage to her fav Victorian writers in an insider academic way there? There's a certain feminine voice and tone goin' on there too. That Daniel M. Lavery really writes like a girl. How does he do that?!
If someone who subscribed to the Toast a decade ago and suddenly came across Mallory’s new book, knowing nothing about her personal life, they would be struck by what a time capsule she is. Her writing style, humor, topics, etc…are exactly the same as they were in 2014.
I wonder if the gender journey and destruction of Mallory Ortberg wasn’t partially motivated by the hope it would elevate her writing. There is always the cliche that great art, esp writing, must come from struggle, deep meaning, suffering. existential pain, questioning identity, metamorphosis, rebirth, yadda, yadda.
By 2018 Mallory had been firmly in her witty, twee, girly box for years. The content was repetitive by then, just added new combinations of literary references and pop culture to the same formula.
In 2022 Daniel Lavery was still writing the same shit and along with the tee-hee, cute daily life, blog entries you’d have expected from 24 year old Mallory. I can’t help but think Mallory assumed the absolute destruction of her former self would result in a new writing voice or perspective. Queer studies tells me it should have, but her new identity was simply the result of an all consuming relationship with a BPD narcissist. The only new voice and perspective in her life is Joe’s and it sucks.
Holding on to the writing person of 2015 Malory might be the only authentic shred of herself that hasn’t been consumed by the new Yoko Lavery.
the previous comment would be pointed to by Joe to demonstrate how epically wrong I am about everything because “everyone knows you have never, ever been more authentic and true to yourself. In fact you have been my guide, Danny! TERFs are just upset at a gender vanguard like yourself that broke her programming.” I think this how yoko’ing works on Mallory. The negging is for old, boring Mallory, the praise is for new, exciting tranny Danny.
There has to be a name for her style of writing. Aside from just "bad", kek. It's circular. Rhythmically repetitive. Symmetrical? She nearly always says the same word a few different ways in a sing-song fashion. At first encounter it's novel and kinda interesting, but it gets twee and irritating really fast because she employs it endlessly. Is she paying homage to her fav Victorian writers in an insider academic way there? There's a certain feminine voice and tone goin' on there too. That Daniel M. Lavery really writes like a girl. How does he do that?!
I think it's a bit of a pastiche on writing from the Interwar period (1918-1939ish). If you read a lot of the more voicy writers of the time (think F. Scott Fitzgerald), they'll often establish a scene like this. It's one of those things where it's twee now, but at the time it was perfectly acceptable.
P.G. Wodehouse (who wrote the Jeeves and Wooster books, which I cannot recommend enough) used this kind of language to hilarious effect and inspired many other writers who leaned toward humor and whimsy (Douglas Adams is a big one) to the point where that kind of circular wording is a mainstay in Clever British/Teaboo Writing--which is very saturated by female writers. So it's not very surprising to me that Mal would pick that up via osmosis and use it in her Big Boy First Novel, to show that she is very clever and cultured.
Taking bets on Mal finding herself locked out of the house upon returning from her whirlwind book tour. (Nobody's fault of course, as science has not yet discovered a solution for Lock.)
P.G. Wodehouse (who wrote the Jeeves and Wooster books, which I cannot recommend enough) used this kind of language to hilarious effect and inspired many other writers who leaned toward humor and whimsy
The important thing about P.G. Wodehouse is to remember that you are not P.G. Wodehouse. Like you said, the style is seductive, and it's easy to convince yourself you're capable of doing it well.
The occasional Wodehouse pastiche can be fun, like the Lovecraftian Scream for Jeeves. I'd greatly appreciate a short story where an Aunt or two enlist the fish-eating valet to treat a young scion's foray into genderqueerness the same way he treated Bertie's tour with the banjolele.
I can’t help but think Mallory assumed the absolute destruction of her former self would result in a new writing voice or perspective. Queer studies tells me it should have, but her new identity was simply the result of an all consuming relationship with a BPD narcissist.
They're simpletons so they don't understand what queer studies is a challenge to (I'm using the term broadly here, as one might say Marxism is a challenge to capitalism or atheism is a challenge to Christianity) so they don't realize they're skipping steps. They didn't learn about the thing that's been problematized and so mistake it for a systemic revelation based on empirical truths. This is what draws in the narcissist mind because it's promising easy access to power/truth/identity/etc. In reality even the worst forms of queer studies (or any of this theory) like Judith Butler works with built in assumptions and pre-existing material, these people come to it absent that and searching for meaning which results in merely a projected reflection of themselves back. The narcissist is perfect, it's all of society, the system, etc. that's wrong. The narcissist needs to only make a presentation change, a change in performance, etc. to alter the entire system and society and thus achieve the perfection from everyone else that they deserve as the center of the universe.
These people need to just get into Buddhism to destroy their selves.
Man, everything in that post is the most out-of-touch snobbery I've ever read. And what kind of psychopath rates "You can't get nice things from the boats" as worse than Hurricane Helene devastating Appalachia? >New York Magazine
Oh.
This is a really good analysis. Mallory's dad is a preacher, but Christianity isn't cool. So she had to find a belief system that allowed her to distance herself from her book-loving horse-girl preacher's kid vibe and also filled in the gaps it left.
She just found a new religion but one without 2000 years of history, devotion to helping others etc. It promised a quick hit of good feelings and coolness so she went for it.
