Nostalgia

Here's an article about the Yale Literary Magazine.

Its author, Miranda Popkey, contacted me last week for a quote; I'm not sure how she got my name, but I'm glad she did. I had a lot to say, and she accurately represented my opinions.

The first thing I thought of when I got her email, though, was the last time I talked to a Yale reporter.

That reporter was a Skull & Bones girl named Eve Fairbanks, who wrote this article.

The published version of the article, which I have linked to, is fairly benign (although my professor and I are portrayed as amoral, or something) since it was edited heavily in response to my accusations. But the original draft (of which I fortunately still have a copy on my hard drive) was full of distortions and passages that were either character assassination or sloppy journalism. That's setting aside the merely insulting negative descriptions, which, while naturally annoying to me, are the reporter's prerogative.

A little over a year ago, in winter of senior year, I got an email from this Eve Fairbanks, who I'd never met, saying that she'd been an intern at the Atlantic Monthly assigned to read the fiction slush pile. I had submitted a story, which was then rejected by means of the requisite scribbled editor's note, and she'd remembered my name and tracked me down since I went to Yale.

Eve Fairbanks said she lived right across the street from me, was writing a piece about aspiring writers, and asked if I would meet her for coffee and an interview. I was surprised and flattered; I agreed without any second thoughts.

The interview was not very long and Eve Fairbanks asked questions like, "Who are your favorite authors?" and "Why do you write?" She also said a lot of things like, "Thank you so much for doing this, it's really helpful," and "There's a good chance this story will get published in The Atlantic Monthly," and "This could help you a lot, it will get your name out there." I was happy.

From time to time over the following months, I would run into Eve Fairbanks on the street, and she would say things like, "That article - I'll email it to you when it's finished," and then walk very quickly away.

Right before graduation, I got an email from her with the finished article attached.

I read it. The article was about a mentally ill man in a halfway house who for years had been submitting fiction to the Atlantic. He was portrayed as a sort of noble savage of fiction - full of passion, even if he didn't write well - whereas my professor and I were his opposites: craft-obsessed manipulators to whom passion and honesty meant nothing.

I saw at once that Eve Fairbanks had intended to do this from the beginning - that she had gotten in touch with me because she needed someone to characterize in this fashion in order to calibrate her story, and that it didn't matter what I told her in the interview because she was determined to twist or decontextualize my answers to fit her intended characterization. And I couldn't help thinking that she had approached me in particular because I was a rare student writer who wasn't socially connected to the undergraduate literary community, where she had many friends who she wouldn't like to offend, and because she felt that her wealth, social fluency, and Skull & Bones membership would insulate her from my inevitable reaction to the story.

Here are a few short but representative passages from the original story.

What is surprising about Nick is this: He refuses to ruminate on why he writes and submits for publication, which is what I really want to know. "Why do I write?" His look is dead.

There is nothing explicitly false here. But it's apparent, I think, what she's up to.

Has [Atlantic fiction editor] Mike Curtis ever taken a look at Nick Antosca's stories? He has read a few submissions by a similarly-credentialed Yale undergrad, though he can't recall the name. "If it's who I'm thinking of, I think he's learned to write a fancy sentence, and he's admired for that," Curtis says. "But he doesn't have enough of the world with him to feel authentic pain."

When I told Eve that I felt she needed to take one of my stories and have Curtis confirm that he was, in fact, talking about me, she cut this passage from the story.

He has recently become friends with Jonathan Safran Foer.

This because I told her I had recently gone to see Foer read with Martin Amis at the New Yorker Festival, and that I wished I had Foer's agent. Also cut.

But when we parted at the end of our coffee date, I had the creeping, disappointing feeling that he knew how he wanted to tell the story, but had no idea what story it was he wanted to tell. He abandoned film, an interest in freshman year, not so much because he had a yearning to devote himself to writing, but because he faltered in the face of the film industry, which seemed to be all business and pep talks. Reclusive by nature, he doesn't like dealing with people. The last movie he made was filmed with puppets, so as not to require actors. He prefers to sit in his room and write. And if it's just a fancy paragraph he writes, maybe he can't be blamed: Maybe Crowley's way of teaching allows him not to worry about wrestling with the substance of his more elusive calling. When I met with him, Crowley remarked that none of his students have made it big yet as writers, and he has no idea why.

She's referring to John Crowley, a fiction professor at Yale. She wanted to portray Crowley as clueless, lost in academia, and out of touch with, I don't know, the passion and fire of great fiction, or something. So she didn't mention that he is an internationally admired novelist with numerous books. In her original story, he's just some random professor.

Also bewildering in this passage is the "not so much because he had a yearning to devote himself to writing" bit. I cannot imagine, after what I told her in the interview, that she believed this to be true.

There were other, similar distortions and deceptively placed quotes all throughout the article (plus several curious descriptions of me - "His camel eyes droop languidly" and so forth). I was confused at first - there must be some mistake, here... - and then I was depressed, and then I was furious.

Soon I learned that she had finally shown me the article only because it was about to be published in the Yale Daily News Magazine (not the Atlantic, at least); it won the prestigious Wallace Prize. So I sent a number of long emails to Eve Fairbanks and to the YDNM editor pointing out inaccuracies, omissions, and fabrications in the article. I don't have the emails anymore since my Yale account has expired, but I recall holding back somewhat and not writing exactly what I felt, which was that Eve Fairbanks had been deliberately deceptive and written a story that she knew was not honest or ethical.

The YDNM editor was quick to respond (though Eve wasn't). It is possible he feared some minor ugliness - they had already announced but not published the prizewinners, meaning that there was potential embarrassment if one of the winning stories was partially rotten - so he, I guess, worked with Eve to cut out the false or misleading stuff, and even some of the insulting stuff, too. They also acknowledged that John Crowley was, in fact, a novelist. The editor sent me the relevant sections of the final version to confirm that it was acceptable, which was good of him.

So the article was published in its neutered but more honest form, and that was that.

The whole depressing episode was, thematically, a very appropriate conclusion to my college years.

Anyway, corresponding with the Herald reporter last week reminded me of all that again, and so did reading the article today, since it's mostly about the state of Yale undergraduate literary culture, which is not very healthy.

One of the Herald's questions was about advice for aspiring writers, and to my discredit I replied with the glib remark that concludes the article. A more sincere answer would have been: Never, ever trust a journalist. They can and will screw a person over like Eve did - or like this, or this. That is not to say that no journalist is trustworthy - many are, of course. But not all. So you should always have written or recorded evidence of any communication you have with a journalist.