Grace Lavery / Joseph Lavery & Daniel M. Lavery / Mallory Ortberg - "Straight with extra steps" couple trooning out to avoid "dwindling into mere heterosexuality"

[Law]

I read some pieces from Something That May Shock and DIscredit You and while it's not really my bag I can see how her writing would be someone else's.

There's a reason The Toast was successful. Sadly, Joe is the type of abuser who gets a boner from taking a successful woman down a peg and putting her "in her place". Her talent, success and fans were why he targeted her.
I hope all women being targeted by AGPs and abusers realize that, even at your lowest point, you're better than him, and he knows it. You have what he desperately wants.
Mallory will probably never tell Joe to go fuck himself but if she ever leaves his implosion will be legendary.

 

[Stupid Sexy Flanders]

There's a reason The Toast was successful.

The issue for Mallory is that she's at best had zero development since then, at worst she's actually picked up horrible habits via Joe. Her style is very twee mid-2010s Tumblrina style and most have moved on from that. If she had cultivated her audience, style and developed from that, she might've been a writer with a solid audience. But I suspect that even most of the "woke" women from that era of her career have a hard time taking her seriously as The Doodliest Dood who ever Dooded while also publishing the girliest book ever while being the third wheel / nanny in the power throuple.

A lot of them might not dare to register on Kiwifarms and say it out loud, but I'm guessing most women from her The Toast days - if they even keep track of her - think her life is a mess and giggle about it behind her back.

 

[Law]

If she had cultivated her audience, style and developed from that, she might've been a writer with a solid audience.

She couldn't focus on that while she was busy being Joe's knuckle-warmer.

 

[Bookwork]

"the problems of politeness"

Like why (dainty foot stamp of outrage) to do we have to say "excuse me" when accusing family members of crimes with no evidence?

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

Our man Dan was absent from intimate groove? Yep, making selfies of her newly thrifted student rejects.

Nothing says manly like a thrift-shopping habit. (I know, I know, boys thrift, too...especially crocheted cardigans! )

Text: "I was born to wear the clothes they sell in Wisconsin"

That's actually pretty fucking funny. And not just in a mean way.

 

[Dr. Butt]

Yes, but by using a stupid tree image.

Mallory thinks it is genius. I did not think I claimed to agree.

- a stageplay about the Nando's in Cribbs Mall
- a telenovela script set in Dorset

I'd watch these if someone other than Joe did them.

Her style is very twee mid-2010s Tumblrina style and most have moved on from that.

As someone who writes for an audience her own age, she needed to grow up as most of them did. The handful that stayed mentally arrested-development-slightly disabled-24 til the age of 40 as she did, are no longer reading or doing or buying anything, and just sort of staring at twitter and tiktok and every 28 days, having sex with their potato-shaped, 2012-fashionable-glasses-wearing, bearded husbands that they do not love but need because they are pants-shittingly terrified to be alone/phoneless for any length of time.
So yes, these Mal-clones will read and buy her garbage, but there is a very small number of them out there to do so. The numbers we've seen on the waiting lists probably reflect 100% of her readers/audience nowadays.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

I've been casually making my way through Women's Hotel, and I gotta say....I don't hate it?

It's something *different*. It goes against so many trends in current fiction. It's not a thriller, or a romantic comedy, or a YA fantasy about queer werewolves in a dystopian future. There are no self-insert characters or any clear parallel's to Mal's own life. There's a strong narrative voice; yes, it gets grating at times, but it's there and it's unique and it fits the shabby-genteel setting IMO.

Speaking of, I like the setting. Aside from a couple brief scenes in Mad Men, I can't think of a piece of fiction that takes place in a women's hotel. A points I've wondered if I'd have ever been able to live in such a place. It doesn't really matter to me if it isn't 100% historically accurate, historical fiction never is. It's more about a *vibe*, as the kids say. A tiny little portrait of a tiny little moment. I'm fine with that.

I'm someone who also can't help but root for Mal in a way. She's all kinds of a mess and complicit in her own abuse, but god damn it the woman is not lazy or idle. I really do hope the success of the book leads to her developing the rudiments of a spine.

God damn it Mal, stop winning me over.

 

[Friend of Dorothy Parker]

I've been casually making my way through Women's Hotel, and I gotta say....I don't hate it?

It's something *different*. It goes against so many trends in current fiction. It's not a thriller, or a romantic comedy, or a YA fantasy about queer werewolves in a dystopian future. There are no self-insert characters or any clear parallel's to Mal's own life. There's a strong narrative voice; yes, it gets grating at times, but it's there and it's unique and it fits the shabby-genteel setting IMO.

Speaking of, I like the setting. Aside from a couple brief scenes in Mad Men, I can't think of a piece of fiction that takes place in a women's hotel. A points I've wondered if I'd have ever been able to live in such a place. It doesn't really matter to me if it isn't 100% historically accurate, historical fiction never is. It's more about a *vibe*, as the kids say. A tiny little portrait of a tiny little moment. I'm fine with that.

I'm someone who also can't help but root for Mal in a way. She's all kinds of a mess and complicit in her own abuse, but god damn it the woman is not lazy or idle. I really do hope the success of the book leads to her developing the rudiments of a spine.

Would you consider it "high-brow" (lol, no), or chick lit, or somewhere (where?) in-between? Compare to Jennifer Egan, for example (PL I used to know her & her husband pre-Pulitzer; shame on me for not keeping up with my relationships, sigh), who is both a woman and an author, but not a "woman author" nor writing "books for women."

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Would you consider it "high-brow" (lol, no), or chick lit, or somewhere (where?) in-between? Compare to Jennifer Egan, for example (PL I used to know her & her husband pre-Pulitzer; shame on me for not keeping up with my relationships, sigh), who is both a woman and an author, but not a "woman author" nor writing "books for women."

That's a good question. I'd say it's literary fiction. Much less readable than Egan, though I do think the density of the writing style is a deliberate choice. It's sort of like the literary equivalent of Wes Anderson's visual style, to make a very obvious comparison that I'm sure a bunch of cat ladies on Goodreads have already made.

 

[Bookwork]

Aside from a couple brief scenes in Mad Men, I can't think of a piece of fiction that takes place in a women's hotel.

Desultory googling . . .

Fiction: The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis, 2017, Amazon, "pulls readers into the lush world of New York City's glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where in the 1950s a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side by side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon's glitzy past."

Nonfiction: The Barbizon: The New York Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren, 2021, Amazon.

 

[A Sentient Cloud]

Desultory googling . . .

Fiction: The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis, 2017, Amazon, "pulls readers into the lush world of New York City's glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where in the 1950s a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side by side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon's glitzy past."

Nonfiction: The Barbizon: The New York Hotel That Set Women Free by Paulina Bren, 2021, Amazon.

Okay? I said, "I can't think of..." rather than "I can't find via googling..."

So amend my post to say: There's one other piece of fiction in the past decade that touches upon this subject.

Edit: Ugh sorry for being pointlessly aggro. I need to leave Reddit.

 

[monstrous bubo]

I've been casually making my way through Women's Hotel, and I gotta say....I don't hate it?

In all seriousness, it’s always good to know someone is getting their pleasure where they may. I hope you keep having fun with it.

There are no self-insert characters or any clear parallel's to Mal's own life.

I was wondering whether Katherine had some of Mal’s characteristics pre-Joe, based on @Wonderland foster child’s summaries so far:

• Midwest roots (Mal’s early life was in Illinois, where her father’s family was from)
• youthful alcoholism
• a decade after sobering up, lives surrounded by women (The Toast etc), no clear connection to a man
• lonely and uses religion as a source of shallow but positive social connections, but has no real faith (Mal said she stopped believing in college, but stayed connected for social and family reasons in her twenties)
• gets clout from telling other people how to act (Dear Prudie)

Please keep us informed as you progress!

 

[Free the Pedos]

I've been casually making my way through Women's Hotel, and I gotta say....I don't hate it?

I agree. There are particular sections that are too overwrought to be entertaining, but I enjoy the little tableaux she’s illustrating enough to keep reading.

 

[Bookwork]

Okay? I said, "I can't think of..." rather than "I can't find via googling..."

So amend my post to say: There's one other piece of fiction in the past decade that touches upon this subject.

Nah, fren. I wasn't trying to counter you - or a complete lit review on the matter.

Your post made me curious and when I found those two books I wondered (desultorily) whether they kind of fed Mal's interest or went unnoticed by her.

I was wondering whether Katherine had some of Mal’s characteristics pre-Joe,

That's exactly what crossed my mind.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

View attachment 6550192

But what if I want to read a book that is GOOD?
and interesting?
and well written?
by an actual writer?

If I want small domestic details, problems of politeness, and women who live together but do not respect one another's values or wardrobes, I'll have a camera installed to observe the interactions between Mallory and Lily.

And if I want to see old menus, I will travel to the House on the Rock and check out the Titanic relics. Kind of disappointing the throuple didn't go there during her Madison visit, it would have led to some hilarious over-the-top prose.

 

[Law]

buying anything, and just sort of staring at twitter and tiktok

I think the people who stare at TikTok buy a lot of things, TikTok makes a lot of money.

I've been casually making my way through Women's Hotel, and I gotta say....I don't hate it?

I actually liked the excerpt. I might read it. I like the idea of a story that's just a collection of vignettes, and I think using a hotel as a framing device is cool.

 

[Wonderland foster child]

Women's Hotel non-review
Chapter Five: The Last of Ohio

I think Mama Ortberg may be nodding at this: "Mrs. Heap did not understand how sincere parental compassion could have led to such an unnatural and disordered relationship, could not have explained even to her own husband why the idea of seeing their daughter again, even after the years of her sobriety exceeded the term of her drunkenness, would have felt like a violation against decency."

This chapter feels like Mallory's therapy session. Lots and lots of polite family estrangement.

We FINALLY come to the end of Katherine's backstory...and we move straight on to someone else's: Pauline Carter, raised by her anarchist grandparents. The phrase "strangled in his crib" is used twice, for some reason.

I am a third of the way through this novel and I hope something happens soon. Getting back to the hotel would be nice.

 

[monstrous bubo]

I like the idea of a story that's just a collection of vignettes, and I think using a hotel as a framing device is cool.

If you haven’t read it already, you might enjoy Life: A User’s Manual by Georges Perec. It’s proper literature, so it’s pitched a bit higher than this, but the same idea plus there are a few things that link the vignettes.

 

[Constellationzero]

There's a reason The Toast was successful.

Loads of people who were not taught reading and phonics in school and can't read at their age appropriate level?
And still just as many who have never had the pleasure of being able to read something from an author who can actually write?

I will travel to the House on the Rock

House on the Rock sucks. So does the Don Q Inn (which would make a FAR MORE INTERESTING) book than the Thrifty Nickel circular Failory will soon see on Salvation Army thrift store bookshelves everywhere.

The Dodgeville Farm & Fleet is where all the action is. There, and the Mt. Horeb mustard museum.

 

[Diana Moon Glampers]

the Mt. Horeb mustard museum.

They moved it to Middleton. You truly can't go home again.