Two Dames, One Story: "Four Friends, Two Marriages, One Affair — and a Shelf of Books Dissecting It”
Strap in for some truly ELITE rubbernecking, friends!
Dames Nation!
Nobody has ever said it better than Cole Porter, and nobody has ever brought it to life quite the way Ann Miller did in Kiss Me, Kate:
It’s too darn hot for our usual high volume of deep thoughts! It’s time for emergency measures, and in this case, emergency measures consists of picking one great story and sharing a couple of insights that we hope will tantalize you into reading it, too. Think of it as the newsletter version of the light & summery yet substantive snacking that gets us through the dog days. Produce! Cheeses! Quality breads! Ice-cold water with slices of citrus & mint! Now Dame Sophie is thinking about the 101 Minimalist Salads piece Mark Bittman wrote for the NYT way back in 2009!
So the piece we encourage you to read is Chris Heath’s piece “Four Friends, Two Marriages, One Affair — and a Shelf of Books Dissecting It”, in New York Magazine. It’s an engrossing attempt to detangle and tease out the many strands of the relationships among four writers, and the work they’ve published (and not-published) about those relationships. It’s also a process story about the attempt to separate the strands, which plumbs the limits of memory, and even of documentation as events are unfolding. Or, as Dame Margaret has been putting it: new Bad Art Friend just dropped!!
Typically, Dame M. likes to say she does not believe in spoilers, but every once in awhile you get something that’s so thoughtfully constructed that you really do think it would spoil the fun a little if you found out at a pace other than the one the writer has set, so we won’t say more right now. Instead, we’re going to insert a favorite studious photo, encourage you to go read, and paste the post-consumption chat we had below. Come back to us when you’re done with Andrew, Hannah, Anna, and Ryan.
Post-Article Chat: Which Bad Art Friend Would Be YOUR Friend, If You Had to Pick?
Dame Margaret: When you’re done will you name which of the four central figures in the story you’d elect to be friends with, if you have to pick one.
Dame Sophie: Oh boy. I have like 15% left to read, but I already know that’s going to be a hard question to answer. THESE PEOPLE!!!
M: I KNOW!!!
S: Wow, what a ride.
M: when it turned out that every single one of them had written something about it!
S: WILD! I thought the bit with Ryan would be “this man is a lawyer and he just journals about this shit & goes to therapy, and writes the occasional poem for funsies.” Which it ALMOST is!
M: AND THEN, NO! He has written an entire epic poetry cycle about it.
S: I think the only one of them I could actually tolerate being friends with would be Hannah Pittard, the Wronged Wife. I believe she is the worst as a person, yet also the most incisive, and the most interesting writer of the bunch. I would just have to have a very very very one-sided relationship with her, where I encourage her to tell me all about whatever bonkers (in her opinion) stuff is going on that she plans to mine for her thinly veiled fiction and share only the most superficial stuff about myself, because I sure as shit don’t want her to Eleanor Lavish ME.
M: I definitely think Andrew, the Dirtbag Husband, is the worst as a person. And then it’s a photo finish between the other three. But I agree, Hannah is my pick for only tolerable friend, too, at least until Anna (Charismatic and Betraying Friend) and Andrew inevitably divorce, and then she might be the friend I’d want. But until she’s demonstrates a clear understanding that man is no Saul Bellow, I could not handle being around her. Hannah Pittard’s book is definitely the one I want to read the most, though, no competition.
S: I feel like I could be work friends with Ryan
M: MAYBE. But counterpoint: he thought being written as someone who’d interrupt people in bars to do Charlie Chaplin bits made him seem like a “charming character.”
S: Ahahahahahhhh omg!! There’s so much eye-popping shit in this piece that I’d FORGOTTEN about the Charlie Chaplin bits. As for Andrew v. Hannah in the category of Worst Person, I found Hannah inciting a fight with Andrew & then dashing into he bathroom to jot it down in her Notes app to be MONSTROUS.
M: Yes, but she at least admits it, you know? I feel as though Andrew would have done something just that cold-blooded, but then lied about it after. Or merely been too lazy to think it up in the first place.
S: I don’t know if admitting you’re a monster makes you any less of one. “Yeah, I’m a monster” is not the same as “I am a monster and I’m sorry that my monstrosity hurt others and will not be doing that in the future” It’s not even an apology!
M: It isn’t. I think I’d just always be happier being friends with a monster who knows who they are than a monster who’s successfully convinced himself he’s a basically decent person who just cares a lot about ART.
S: Yeah. I think we’re saying slightly different shades of the same thing. Of these four, I would be the least horrified by someone whose every conversation is basically a one-on-one episode of Normal Gossip.
M: Yes, I agree. But we still haven’t resolves this question— does full awareness of monstrosity make one person better than another if their monstrosity remains unrepentant? I honestly am not sure I know the answer. I know that I find self-aware monsters easier to be around than many even very decent self-deluded people.
S: I think it’s easier to have clarity with a self-aware monster. The self-deluded “decent” person is troubling because they believe they’re acting in good faith and are bewildered when someone tells them they’re doing something harmful.
M: Yes, absolutely. But separate even from the issue of clarity, the social thing that causes me the most stress is perceiving the gap between someone’s self-image and their real presence. Because a lot of my social success comes from my ability to grasp how people see themselves and validating their perception as supportively as I can, when it’s positive and correct, or warmly countering them when I feel they’re being unduly negative about themselves. When I am faced instead with someone whose positive self-image I cannot in good conscience validate, I get very stressed out: the process only works if it’s honest, but honesty will not produce the mutual admiration society I am seeking to develop 🤣
S: LOL, yes, I can see how that would place you in a very particular bind. The Hulahoop Special, they call it in wrestling. I also get what you’re saying. Even with Hannah, the most troubling things about her are not the monstrous acts to which she self-awarely cops. It’s the places where you can tell that she actually thinks she’s being reasonable, or truly believes that her reverence for Her Art excuses [insert terrible behavior here]. Those are the places where I find her the most frustrating and the least worthy of sincere & open conversation, let alone friendship.
M: Do you think that if you conceive of yourself as better than a monster, even without being correct, there’s a slightly chance you might grow and reform? It’s hard for me to imagine effective change in the absence of meaningful self-understanding, but are your chances for growth still better than those of people who see themselves exactly as they are, and do not repent one bit?
S: Maybe, maaayyyybe a very slightly greater chance of personal growth, but that chance is so vanishingly small that it makes no difference to me. I mean, the truth is that if I somehow found myself in the orbit of any of these four people, I would: (1) eagerly seek out parties where they might be holding court and (2) avoid crossing paths with them in all other contexts
M: Yes, absolute same.
S: They may all have lovely attributes in other domains of their lives/personalities, but I think I *only* would want to know them as fictional characters, which is now making me chuckle.
M: I am genuinely eager to get my hands on Hannah Pittard’s slightly fictionalized memoir about this. It feels like the perfect place to begin. In the end, this piece is like that imagined mystery author’s gambit where the author commits murder and then fictionalizes it into a runaway bestseller. Only every corpse gets to tell and sell their own version. May the best monster win!
And now it’s your turn to weigh in:
And please, let us know your arguments in the comments <3
Heartwarming Chaser: Supermarket Sweep’s “Business Partners”
If you’re any degree of online, there’s a good chance you saw both this initial tweet:
And this exceptionally heartwarming reply:
What you may not know is that the couple in question, Tim Leach and Mark Dammann, were interviewed by Slate’s Dan Kois, and their full story is even more heartwarming than you’d guess. They are, without doubt, the perfect palate cleanser for Hannah and Anna and Ryan and Andrew.
This week’s Two Bossy Dames is brought to you by:
XOXO, Dames Margaret & Sophie
I so needed the Supermarket Sweep story after all that writer mess. The name indignation was just the topper for me - I keep thinking of Barb and Star’s Trish as the exact opposite of what Shearer thinks.
I went with Ryan because, even though, sure, he’s writing *poetry* about the whole damn thing, it still seems like he’s done the best job of moving it to the back of his mind and trying to get on with his life—and because he has the decency to do his utmost to give Hannah the clean break she says she wants.