Writers Have A Right To Privacy, or, Sorry Your Book Didn't Get Published

I'm annoyed...

Photo by Tamanna Rumee on Unsplash

I’m not going to be able to get any work done until I get this off my chest, so, here goes…

Earlier today I read a Substack post from a tragically-underpublished writer, tearing into Chuck Palahniuk for… reasons. Something about how his public and private personas don’t line up, and that’s somehow a moral failure. It makes special note of the fact that Chuck denied for years that he was gay, before finally coming out.

Mostly it’s about how the writer thinks Chuck’s books suck now. That’s pretty much the thesis statement.

There are two things very telling about the piece. The first is that he says Chuck is probably lying about being a member of the Cacophony Society, and had to amend the post with a correction, when someone did the barest of due diligence, i.e., a little research. So clearly this guy was writing to a pre-determined narrative.

Second, he talks about his own book, which shared similar elements with Fight Club, and didn’t get published.

And that sort of tells the story right there, doesn’t it?

Anyway, it annoyed me. A lot. And I was going to comment on the post itself—but he clearly wants to stir shit up and juice his subscriber list by putting someone else down. If you want to go find the piece I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard, but, while it’s not worth linking to, there are a few things worth saying:

(And I say all this as someone who isn’t friends with Chuck, but is certainly friendly with him.)

Yes, for years Chuck denied he was gay, and then he came out… but the idea that it speaks to some kind of moral failure is just the worst fucking kind of gross. No one owes anyone an inventory of their sexuality, and if someone doesn’t feel safe to come out, then they have every right to keep that to themselves. Chuck is of a generation when that was a legitemately dangerous thing to do.

Second, of course there’s a difference between Chuck’s private and public persona. There has to be. We need that separation.

Have you ever seen Chuck at an event, like a book signing? He’s a big personality. He’s a performer. Meanwhile, I’ve sat with him at dinner tables where I have to lean across and ask him to repeat himself, because in reality, he’s pretty quiet and reserved.

This is a moral failing… how?

The reason I’m so pissed off is because I know, on some level, how this all feels. After The Warehouse sold in a major deal, things changed—I went from publishing with an indie press that paid me enough per book for a nice steak dinner, to making so much money I could become a full-time writer.

It sounds great. And it is! But it also got me into therapy (…well, I got into therapy for a lot of reasons, but that was one of them). When you hit that level, expectations are huge, and you spend a lot of time stressing how you’ll live up to them. More than that, the people around you suddenly treat you differently.

I had some amazing friends who were genuinely excited for my success. And I had some congratulate me through gritted teeth. I could smell it on them. “Why you and not me?”

I found that a lot of my friends—people I was once able to commiserate with about the trials and tribulations of the publishing industry—were suddenly a lot less interested in hearing what I had to say.

To their mind, I had nothing to worry about. I’d made it to the Promised Land. I’d never have a bad night’s sleep again.

I had plenty of things to worry about! I wrote a little more about this over at Open Secrets. But in short, the top of the mountain is not covered with cupcakes and unicorns. There is no top. The top of every mountain is the bottom of another.

But if I expressed the slightest bit of fear or anxiety, they were incredulous. “But you’re happy, right? You must be happy.”

Like it was wrong to have feelings.

It was at that point that I learned the value of creating a wall between my public and private personas. Which, as a dad, and a fallible human who would like some things about his life to remain private, it was a necessity.

I don’t have nearly the public profile that Chuck does. But I’ve been recognized in public. I’ve had strangers comment on things about my personal life that have made me incredibly uncomfortable. I’ve got a kid, and there’s a reason I don’t share pictures of her on social media.

Yes, part of me wants to defend Chuck here, because he’s been nothing but kind and generous to me, and because not liking his books is a shitty entry point to tearing him down as a person.

But I’m also defending myself, and writers in general. We have the right to privacy, and we don’t owe you anything beyond the book you read, which has already granted you insider access to the chambers of our hearts.

And if you don’t like the book, maybe go read something else.

At the start of this piece, I used the term tragically-underpublished. It’s a term I come back to often, whenever I come across the kind of writer who blames their failure, or relative lack of success, on factors outside of their own personality, ability, and work. They’re the writers who think publishing is pie, and someone came and stole their piece. It’s a sad way to live.

But hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the key to success is to shit on other people. I hope that guy got what he wanted: a few minutes of attention and some more subscribers for his newsletter.