Writers Writing About Writers (and Musicians, and Artists, and and)

I was in New York a few weeks ago and I did something truly outrageous — -I walked into my favorite bookstore, turned to Anna, and was like, “I’m only allowed to buy one book, ok?”, and then actually bought only one book. I hope you can appreciate the magnitude of this event because it has, quite literally, never happened before and will probably never happen again.

I’d like to think this is a sign of maturity, growth, discipline, but lol there’s no way I can honestly say I possess any of those qualities. It was really some combination of other, less impressive qualities: fatigue, for one, impatience for another, the claustrophobia of being in Manhattan on a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon. I wasn’t hot but I was becoming progressively aware of that gross dampness on your lower back, that thing where body is like, “I’m not sweating now, but I could be soon,” and when I saw Amy Scholder’s new book Icon it was easy to select as my one book purchase for the day.

Last night I did another out-of-character thing and closed my laptop. I’d love to say this was a sign of maturity, growth, boundaries between my self and my work, but lol I was just bored and anxious and besides, I could continue all the conversations I’d been pretending were “work” on my phone, so I took it to the couch and finished reading my one New York book purchase. It was, as much as one book can ever be, exactly what I needed to read. The premise is really what sold me: nine writers write about nine women who have had some sort of effect on their lives as some kind of icons. Beyond that, the list of writers is exactly the list of people who I want to tell me which women they admire: Mary Gaitskill, Johanna Fateman, Danielle Henderson, Kate Zambreno were the first to jump out at me, but every writer is incredible, every essay so wonderful.

I made a joke a long time ago about my book collection being a kind of Sad Girls Club — -which is true, and something I’m proud of, and I swear I will do a post on that soon — -but I do also think I spend a lot of time reading books or articles that celebrate something, even if it’s sadness, because those are the books that have the greatest impact on my actual life. Icon, the editor Amy Scholder says in her introduction, grew out of a lot of things, but the catalyst was a meeting with Elizabeth Wurtzel. Wurtzel said she wanted to write about Amy Winehouse and she couldn’t get a publisher interested; “I began to imagine how other writers might respond, given the chance to write about their icons,” Scholder says, before going on to say she could have never predicted the range of answers. Linda Lovelace, Aretha Franklin, Andrea Dworkin, bell hooks are just a few of the women chosen by writers, all celebrations of their personal icon’s complexities and contradictions, not love letters, exactly, because they’re not really written to the icon in question. It’s more like a mission statement or a personal history: “Here’s who I’ve looked to for answers. Here’s what I’ve found there.”

I mean, this is all code for being a gross voyeur who feels that I always need to know every single thing that contributes to the identity of a person I admire, but hearing another woman explain exactly who or what matters to them is the best thing about my life, and this book provides that experience and then some. I’d highly recommend you read it, and then think about who you’d want to champion in a book of essays on this topic, and then maybe even email that person and tell them how you feel. Or if you can’t email them recommend their work to a friend. OR just share it in the comments for other Hairpin readers! That’s my official Wednesday morning recommendation as I am a medical doctor specializing in treating Wednesday Mornings.