Thursday, November 05, 2009

Modern love, walks beside me, modern love, walks on by

I've written about my fascination with Joyce Maynard before.

Not long ago, she wrote a NY Times column about snooping into her daughter Audrey's email after learning her daughter's boyfriend was HIV-positive. Her daughter was interning in the Dominican Republic, and wasn't responding to mom's frantic emails, so I guess that was the justification.

Anyway, daughter Audrey Bethel responds to mom's article here.

It must be tough to be Joyce Maynard's daughter, is all I'm saying. I don't know either of them but although Maynard's love for her child is obvious, the sheer wash of words she's written about her is horribly daunting.

Audrey's article is the third (I think) in a series called "Modern Love Revenge," in which people who were written about in the Times' Modern Love feature get their own say. How awesome.

How would you like to have dated this guy, who exposed your pet names in the newspaper of record without warning, and then has the gall to write to you and say "Of course, my essay is not the truth. It's a version that is emotionally truthful for me...The essay isn't about you or me, and wasn't written for either of us, but only about how people struggle with these things."

Not true, but "emotionally truthful for me"? Struggle with this, pal, I'd like to say, as I smacked him in the face.

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