In Defense of Marie Calloway

Marie Calloway has recently achieved notoriety as the pseudonymous author of Adrien Brody, an autobiographical story about her sexual encounter(s) with a modestly famous New York writer. The original version of the story was first posted on Calloway’s Tumblr, but later retracted because it revealed the real identity of “Adrien Brody.”

from mrstsk.tumblr.com

Calloway’s story has been met with a mixture of interest and vitriol. The main detractors claim she lacks talent and berate her for her desire for recognition of her talents. They state outright or imply that her reported behavior is slatternly. The fact that her desire for attention is only equal to that of “Adrien” is given little, if any, weight.

It’s true that the original interest in Calloway’s story was due mainly to its unflattering (but not unaffectionate) reportage on a well-known figure. Attention persisted because the story is insightful and well-written, and because Calloway was all too happy to defend herself and her intellect.

Adrien Brody doesn’t merit ongoing attention because (some) readers know Brody’s real identity, but because the piece itself is sharp, its unapologetic author both vulnerable and shrewd. During sex, Calloway’s choice of conversation topic is remorselessly bookish:

He started to talk about things.
“I always feel weird talking during sex,” I said.
“But that’s the best part,” he insisted, grinning.
“Let’s talk about Gramsci,” I said.
“Okay,” he said, and we did.

Adrien Brody is well-structured (very Ford Maddox Ford): we are placed in the action; the background is woven into the story; requisite development, climax, ending). Calloway’s voice is as blunt and incisive as Mary Gaitskill’s narrators in Bad Behavior. Here’s a little excerpt from the short story Secretary (this takes place just after the narrator’s boss non-consensually spanked her while she read aloud and cried):

I went to my desk. He closed the office door behind him. I sat down, blew my nose and wiped my face. I stared into space for several minutes, every now and then dwelling on the tingling sensation in my buttocks. I typed the letter again and took it into his office. He didn’t look up as I put it on his desk.

A lot of people want to rip Marie Calloway to shreds. She is a spectacle because she has made herself vulnerable; her transparent desire for affection entertain in part because it is sad, and frightening, and such a very perfect reflection of so many people’s desires. As though a desire to be told that you’re worthy makes someone lesser. It does not, but in extreme cases, it may yield weird results. Adrien Brody is one of those.

As I read blogs and articles that pillory Marie Calloway I am reminded of the way those who had little or no stake in the JT Leroy case condemned Laura Albert. They despised the way Albert yearned for, then coveted, the vicarious attention she received for her talent. They assumed she wrote as JT for the attention, or for the fame, and not simply because at some point, it made sense for her to “be” JT.

It comes back to Andy Warhol, a man whose profound obsession with recognition was rooted in his own profound insecurity with his appearance (and his uncertainty of his own worth or worthiness).

There is always a great deal of anger directed toward those who want fame and pursue unusual means to attain it. Warhol is loved and hated in equal measure, and for a time Albert faded into disgraced obscurity (but she’s coming back!). One may or may not enjoy their output, but whether they hunger for fame should have little to do with it.

Speaking of hungering for fame: I have yet to read anything that confirms that Marie Calloway wrote the original Adrien Brody (before the Muumuu House edits) as a coldly calculated move to draw attention to herself. Calloway had already been published on Thought Catalog. She already wrote and posted autobiographical stories on her Tumblr. As far as I know, the primary version of Adrien Brody was posted in that context. In an interview she says that she was “excited” about the story, but that could as easily be attributed to the content as the (potentially fallacious) assumption that it would bring attention.

The personality cults of girls with Livejournals (or, more recently, Tumblrs), have finally spilled into the mainstream. Yes, Adrien Brody is self-absorbed, but there is something fascinating, something profoundly intimate, about directed self-absorption. As they grew older these women tucked their insecurities and meditations safely away behind Friends Only posts, presuming that need and confusion were unacceptable traits in anyone past the age of 19. Something was lost, then, in the fear that honesty could only be permissible in juvenilia.

Marie Calloway intentionally lets the raw edge of her damaged youth show. Yes, her writing is solipsistic, but the solipsism is intentional and affecting. It’s involving and cleverly rendered and happily, because of a certain Adrien Brody scandal, there’ll soon be more of it. I hope her stories stay keen.

Addendum: The more I think about it, the more I think Marie Calloway might be a hoax, a pseudonymous personality and not just a nom de guerre. What proof is there that the letter to The Hairpin was real (or even that the original Tumblr post existed)? It’s interesting that people are asking “Who is ‘Adrien Brody’?” but not “Who is ‘Marie Calloway’?” We’re quick to assume that she is who she claims to be, despite her affiliation with people dedicated to adopting multiple online personas and staging publicity stunts (Momus and Tao Lin). It seems equally likely that Marie Calloway is who she claims, and that she isn’t who she claims. It doesn’t matter all that much. What’s really interesting is the way she and her writing have been treated, validated, invalidated, et cetera, based on assumptions about her identity and motives.

Mr. Fox, Bluebeard, The Robber Bridegroom, and the Anti-Tale (or) A Sort of Response to Katherine Langrish

Illustration of a cloven-footed an decidedly

A few days ago author Katherine Langrish published a guest post on The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond about Bluebeard, Mr. Fox, Harald Silkenhair and the anti-tale. During the week preceding her post, I had been considering writing about the tale of Mr. Fox. When I saw Katherine’s post, I knew it was time. Mr. Fox is probably my all-time favourite of all fairy and folk tales. If you haven’t read Mr. Fox, I strongly recommend you do so now.

I have always read Mr. Fox a kind of anti-tale, an English folktale that riffs on The Robber Bridegroom in order to comment on Bluebeard. Despite its categorisation by folklorists as a variation of The Robber Bridegroom, Mr. Fox appears to be quite old (in fact, it is referenced in Much Ado About Nothing[1]).

I am not certain that Mr. Fox was intended to be told or read as an anti-tale, or that it neatly fits the anti-tale category. It is only in context – specifically, in the context of contemporary Western society, in which Bluebeard is far better-known – that Mr. Fox takes on the appearance of an anti-tale. But what an anti-tale it is.

Lady Mary, the heroine of Mr. Fox, shares the pluck of The Robber Bridegroom’s female protagonist. However, instead of being pressured into agreeing to marry a creepy and dislikable man, Lady Mary actively chooses Mr. Fox from among her many suitors. Mr. Fox presents himself as a genteel nobleman who lives in a large castle in the countryside. Mr. Fox’s class affect and ostensible wealth indicate that he is more Bluebeard than Robber Bridegroom. Mr. Fox’s ghastly actions assume contemporary significance in part because of his veneer of upper class charm (more on this in a moment).

Unlike the bride in Bluebeard, Lady Mary choose to visit Mr. Fox’s castle before the wedding. He has suggested she visit many times, and she is curious. Thus, she does so.

The castle itself is an odd an empty place. The first arch Lady Mary passes under is etched with the words “Be Bold, Be Bold.” The words on the next arch: “Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold.” And on the third? “Be Bold, Be Bold, But Not Too Bold, Lest That Your Heart’s Blood Should Run Cold.”

The repetition of those particular phrases thrills me every time I read them. It fills the reader with anticipation: we know there must be something to dread beyond that arch.

Lady Mary is bold. Her heart’s blood does not run cold, not in the least! Full of curiosity, she ignores the warnings and proceeds up a stair, at the top of which she finds a room full of rather ghastly corpses (as Langrish writes, this is Bluebeard’s Bloody Chamber).

Suddenly Lady Mary hears a noise. It must be Mr. Fox returning home! She hides in a place where she cannot be discovered, but from which she may see and hear. It is from this location that she spies Mr. Fox, dragging the corpse of a young lady who is dressed as a bride. Mr. Fox notices a ring on the dead woman’s finger and tries to yank it off. When that fails he produces a knife and severs the finger from its hand. The finger flies through the air and lands in Lady Mary’s lap.

Now, in the face of this horror, does Lady Mary’s blood run cold? Oh no, dear reader, no. Even though we are collectively holding our breath in dread, Lady Mary keeps her head and remains still and hidden while Mr. Fox searches the room. When he cannot find the finger, he leaves. Lady Mary slips the dead finger into her pocket and departs the castle.

The next day Mr. Fox visits Lady Mary and her family. As they sit dining, she relates a “dream” she had in which she visited Mr. Fox’s castle. She tells first of the series of arches she encountered, and the cautioning words she found there. Each time she relates one of the phrases (“Be Bold…”) Mr. Fox responds, “But it is not so, nor it was not so.”

When Lady Mary describes the portion of her dream in which she discovers the Bloody Chamber, Mr. Fox responds, “It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so,” and he goes on repeating this until the very end of Lady Mary’s anecdote, when she relates how Mr. Fox chopped off a dead woman’s finger.

After the final “It is not so, nor it was not so. And God forbid it should be so,” Lady Mary pulls from her pocket the finger, still adorned with its ring, and throws it on the table, crying out, “But it is so, and it was so. Here’s finger and ring I have to show!”

The story concludes, “At once her brothers and her friends drew their swords and cut Mr. Fox into a thousand pieces.”

Note that it is Lady Mary’s curiosity that not only allows her to live, but leads to Mr. Fox’s punishment for his ill deeds. She stands in stark opposition to Bluebeard bride, a woman who is ever imperilled and chastised for her curiosity. Bluebeard’s bride is first punished for her interest in an unusual man (who is, of course, later revealed to be a murderer) and then, rather paradoxically, almost murdered for violating her nasty husband’s interdictions.

Lady Mary stands as a kind of anti-tale heroine, the foil to Bluebeard’s meek and helpless bride. Though Mr. Fox is centuries old, its repetition in the contemporary West, as related to but not of the Bluebeard fairy tale, lends it the appearance and function of the anti-tale. Not only is Lady Mary rewarded for her curiosity and her lack of dependance upon male characters (or anyone else, for that matter), her actions drive the story. Her male relatives and friends don’t protect some wilting heroine; instead, they chop Mr. Fox to pieces, “not Lady Mary’s rescuers, but her agents” (to quote Langrish).

Mr. Fox also has parallels with the contemporary English class system. There are many members of the English Upper Class who are so only because of a certain title or affect, but who lack wealth. Mr. Fox has the manner and castle of an upper class Englishman, but the reader gleans from his preoccupation with the ring (and from use of the motif of the chopped appendage, which also appears in The Robber Bridegroom) that Mr. Fox is after money (again, contrast Mr. Fox’s motivations to Bluebeard’s; Bluebeard kills out of sexual and psychological motivation, whereas Mr. Fox murders for money). He may be nobility, and have a castle, but he is poor, and has turned to monstrous deeds to support himself.

Moreover, Mr. Fox is identified with an animal who the English know will resort to theft and murder in order to survive. This is in stark contrast to Bluebeard, whose name and appearance are necessary to the story. The blue beard in question is the kind of signifier that might titillate an audience accustomed to Orientalist aesthetics. Thus Bluebeard is Other. Mr. Fox, on the other hand, is decidedly English, thus sharing the identity of traditional tellers and listeners.

Mr. Fox scuttles the ideology of Bluebeard better than the latter’s anti-tale variations. It is perhaps more challenging than Angela Carter’s “The Bloody Chamber,” an anti-tale version of Bluebeard, or even Fitcher’s Bird, another of those stories that hover between being tale and anti-.

Neil Gaiman has written an anti-tale of Mr. Fox called The White Road, in which Mr. Fox is falsely accused put to death for crimes he did not commit, and Lady Mary is a lying polymorph whose secret shape is the fox[2]. If one interprets Lady Mary as a kind of anti-tale unto itself (or at least, a temporary anti-tale, that become anti- simply because of the time in which it is told), it is rather difficult to see what is so anti- about Gaiman’s version of the tale. One of the many things John Pazdziora and I discussed during the fairy tale conference last weekend was the need for an anti-tale to challenge not only the story it reinterprets but also the dominant ideologies of the time in which it is penned. Mr. Fox strikes me as more surprisingly, fresh and challenging than The White Road. But I may, as always, be wrong.

This has gone far afield from Katherine’s original post. One thing I can say for certain, is that I found her description of her characters intriguing and am now quite desperate to read her books. I am profoundly frustrated that my library lacks a copy of West of the Moon.

[1] Click here and read the second footnote to find out more about the reference to Mr. Fox in Much Ado About Nothing. I must admit a mild skepticism. It seems just as possible that the reference in Much Ado About Nothing is to a different piece of folklore whose motif or refrain Mr. Fox recycled to good affect.

[2] The Lady Mary in Gaiman’s The White Road bears stronger resemblance to the shapeshifting Japanese kitsune than to the British fox.