Enablers

THE PROBLEM of Rick Moody isn't entirely Rick Moody himself. His actions and his words, and the words of his mouthpieces (Harland) show that he's clueless.

An accompanying problem is the way the literary system has enabled his behavior. Even when his actions received notice, the impulse of literati was to defend him-- which meant, of course, defending corruption.

Where were his friends, from Mary Gaitskill to Dave Eggers, to tell him, "Hey, you don't need to be on those panels; you don't need those grants; you don't need your people placed everywhere: back off."
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Where have literary journalists been the past nine years? Moody's behavior has been treated with such kid gloves, by lit-bloggers and journalists, it amounts to a cover-up. I've found only one person who's asked him a single tough question about the lit-world's grants process. That was Claire Zulkey, when Rick Moody submitted to one of her "Twenty Questions" interviews.

Moody's reply to her on the grants topic:
"I just have nothing interesting to say about this at all."
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What's been created with PEN's stonewalling is an irrefutable record inaction. My case has been proven. Where once there was doubt about the nature of the U.S. literary system, all doubt has been removed. The Kremlin nature of the literary establishment is clearly defined and visible-- painted for us by the lit-establishment itself.

I can now take the case from blog to blog, person to person, reading to reading, speech to speech, and say, "Look! Here is the System, outlined in front of you, closed and corrupt"-- and no one will be able to contradict a word.

Join the push for change at
www.penpetition.blogspot.com