Jezebel: anne lamott

New York Times Hard-Pressed To Name Funniest Female Novelists

Jessica — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:30:00 EDT

New York Times book critic David Kelly asked his fellow Times' writers to name the funniest novel ever, and he noted that not a single female author was nominated. "Where are the female nominees?" Kelly wonders. "Someone here mentioned Jane Austen, but only halfheartedly and only after I pointed out that not a single novel by a woman had been proposed. What gives?" Mediabistro says that Times commenters mention Paula Fox, Eudora Welty, and Stella Gibbons as some of the funniest female novelists, and best-selling writer Jennifer Weiner says that Helen Fielding, Gail Parent and Nora Ephron make her chortle.

I agree with the Ephron choice (Heartburn is a must read), and would like to add 1984 Pulitzer Prize winner Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie, and many things by Anne Lamott, who has been tenderly funny although slightly less so ever since she found Jesus. What fiction-writing females would you nominate for funniest novel ever?

What's The Funniest Novel Ever? [NY Times]
Hitchens Take Heart: NYTBR Also Finds Women Unfunny [Mediabistro]
Monday, September 15, 2008 [Moment Of Jen]

Anne Lamott Opines On The Political Artist Formerly Known As Palin

Anna N. — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 12:30:00 EDT

Writer Anne Lamott hates Sarah Palin so much she's not using her real name anymore. Instead she's calling her "Claw Washout," which is what you get when you type "Sarah" into the Sarah Palin Baby Name Generator (if you type in "Sarah Palin," you get "Flack Gobbler," which calls up the image of our favorite lipsticked pit bull devouring publicists). As much fun as the ol' SPBNG is to play around with (try typing in the names of Frank Zappa's kids for a weird-name match made in Heaven), it may not be a great idea to lift Sarah Palin to the status of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

As always, Anne Lamott has some good ideas. Go out and work for Obama, she advises, and talk about his strengths rather than Palin's (or McCain's) weaknesses. Drink a lot of water. Donate your old clothes to charity. But these are things we should be doing anyway, not because we're so poleaxed by the McCain-Palin ticket that we need some kind of coping strategy.

Lamott says Palin fills her with "such existential doubt, such a sense of impending doom and disbelief, that only the Germans could possibly have words for it." And that the Alaskan governor's ignorance "makes anyone of decency feel nauseated — spiritually, emotionally and physically ill." This seems like a classic case of what my mom would call "letting them get to you," which is exactly what you weren't supposed to do to playground bullies, younger siblings, or anyone you hoped to defeat. Or — and perhaps this is more important — anyone you hoped to get along with.

Thing is, Alaskans seem to love Sarah Palin — one poll put her approval rating at 80%. And one poll today has McCain getting 48% of the vote, while Obama gets only 47%. This means there are plenty of people — and plenty of decent people, too — who are thinking of voting McCain-Palin. If we want to change their minds, we can't act like their candidates are Lord Voldemort and the Wicked Witch of the West. We need to combat them as people, and to do that we need to call them by their names — even if Flack Gobbler and Claw Washout are funnier.

A Call To Arms[Salon]

Anne Lamott Tells Stephen Colbert That God Is, In Fact, A 'She'

Anna — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:00:00 EDT

Writer Anne Lamott — whose 1994 book Bird by Bird is well-known and much-loved by millions of frustrated, (mostly female?) writers — appeared in all her dreadlocked-glory on last night's Colbert Report to plug her new book Grace, Eventually, and talk politics, Sunday school, Jeremiah Wright and the fact that God is a female. Strangely, she seemed to back away from that assertion after Colbert called her out on it, but she did get in a good dig at Dick Cheney and his ascension into Heaven. Clip above.

Related: Grace, Eventually: Thoughts On Faith [Amazon]