When Sally Rooney was on a press run for the release of Intermezzo in 2024, she revealed to the New York Times that she had never read a biography of a writer before. In the interview, she claims a lack of interest in the relationship between a writer’s life and their work. The interviewer references Rooney’s public statements about the war in Gaza, asking whether she feels apprehension about sharing her political views. The implication of the question is that political views are beyond the writer’s work, existing in the ambiguous, unspeakable “private” sphere of a writer’s life. Only because of Rooney’s privileged position in public discourse does she begrudgingly share her stance on political topics: “I feel disinclined to [intervene in public conversations] unless there might be something that I can contribute.”
If Rooney could have it her way, her personal life wouldn’t interfere with her work. She believes her public statements and published fiction should be distinctly separate from her personal life. She draws a clear line between the public and personal: “I never want to talk about [my private life] and it doesn’t feel like it has anything to do with my work.” Anything beyond the fiction and the politics within the work belongs to a writer’s private life, which according to Rooney, can be withheld from discourse because of its irrelevancy to the work itself.
But is the distinction between public and private as clear as she thinks? With regards to how we interpret texts, I can agree with Rooney. The argument to separate the artist from the artwork is most convincing in its claim that there isn’t an ultimate, “correct” reading of a text. Instead, each of us readers form conclusions based on our own interactions with the text. In “The Death of the Author,” Barthes tells us the same. Barthes says the author writes in the past tense of the book, whereas the present is when the reader picks up the book. Inception of meaning in the text occurs as the reader absorbs the writing and finds out what it has to say for themselves. He advocates for the multiplicities of subjective readings, abandoning an “ultimate interpretation” derived from the writer since we cannot pluck out definitive conclusions of what the author intended in their text. I think Rooney would agree with this model. As a reader, it’s up to us to form our interpretations of her books without knowing an ounce about her personal life or why she wrote the book.
That being said, Barthes is not ignorant of the capitalist engine driving the literary industry’s tendencies: “The author is a modern character… [he] reigns in manuals of literary history, in biographies of writers, magazine interviews… the image of literature to be found in contemporary culture is tyrannically centered on the author, his person, his history, his tastes, his passions.” This is still true. Much of the allure in books stems from the fact that they are objects created by an author. Readers interpret the writer as much as they do the text itself, and they are incentivized to do so. The industry continues to center authors as the image of literature. The attachment of Pynchon, DFW and McCarthy to bro-lit. Think of the iconic Lithub tote bag with the image of Joan Didion plastered over it. Rooney’s name is constantly brought up as a marketing gimmick. I’ve seen countless books in the past few years publicized under the premise that they’re “For fans of Sally Rooney…” So the death of the author aptly applies to the text: we should separate our interpretation of what we read from the author. But this separation should not disregard how the book and its associated author is implicated in our cultural economy. Profit-driven businesses offer literature, packaged and commodified as books, to consumers for purchase. Regardless of the personal relationships we attach to the texts we read, we participate in for-profit schemes when we add a book to our shopping carts. Consequently, interpretations of the book cannot be self-contained within the text itself, nor can the author be a floating bystander evading responsibility as an actor in the culture economy.
The impossibility of Rooney’s desire to withhold her personal life is due to her status as a public figure. The literary industry plays into the audience’s cravings to know and scrutinize her. Rooney seems to at least understand the implications of being a major actor in the culture economy, attributing her “privileged position in public discourse” to why she does advocate for political issues unrelated to her work. Previously, she has also indicated her opposition to the commodification of her books: “I’m skeptical of the way in which books are marketed as commodities… it makes me feel that books have no potential to speak truth to power, they have no potential as political texts because of the role they play in the culture economy.” But the marketplace will continue to encourage the consumption of her books as commodified objects, regardless of her stance. Ahead of the release of Beautiful World Where Are You, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux distributed themed bucket hats and tote bags for celebrities, journalists, literary influencers and sweepstakes winners. The night before Intermezzo was out, fans gathered for midnight release parties where they played Rooney trivia and received promotional materials from FSG. Earlier this year, Intermezzo was referenced as a companion accessory worn in the back pockets of the “performative male.”
Writing is interdependent with the institutions that proffer a writer’s ideas. Everyone has the freedom to write, but not everyone has the right to be published, receive institutional backing, and be read widely by readers. Rooney’s awareness of her position of power and privilege in public discourse concedes her knowledge that she cannot be separated from her works. Even if she might be disinclined to engage with the public, she does recognize when she ought to, as she did in 2021, when she rejected Israel-based publisher Modan’s request to print a Hebrew translation of BWWAY. Then last fall, Rooney, Rachel Krushner, and Arundhati Roy, along with a thousand other writers signed a letter pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions and promised to not work with Israeli publishers, festivals, literary agencies and publications complicit in the oppression of Palestinians.
In August, she released an article in the Irish Times criticizing the British government’s ban of the organization Palestine Action and condemning their arrest of over 500 peaceful protesters. She said she would use proceeds from Normal People, Conversations with Friends, and their respective BBC adaptations to support Palestine Action. Because the UK listed the organization as a terrorist group under a new act, her donations were technically illegal. Consequently, she can no longer enter the UK without risk of prosecution. Rooney writes, “To ensure that the British public is made aware of my position, I would happily publish this statement in a UK newspaper - but that would now be illegal.” Last month, Rooney said her support of Palestine Action means she might not be able to publish new novels in the UK. Money sways more than words ever might, a key factor in much of the reluctance by companies and western nations to intervene in the genocide. Hundreds of British parliament members accept millions of pounds from pro-Israel groups. In the United States, pro-Israel PACs have contributed billions of dollars to government officials in order to finance happy relations with Netanyahu and military aid. The American literary industry profits from the genocide too. Parent companies of the Big Five publishers have donated and invested millions of dollars to pro-Israel organizations and and Israeli tech, AI, surveillance, and security companies. Publishing employees who retaliate against the publishing of Zionist books and newsroom staffers who speak out against misinformed, biased reporting of Israel’s genocide are laid off.
In addition to the loss of Rooney’s safety and the exercise of free speech, she jeopardizes her profitability when she advocates for an issue like the genocide in Gaza. What she and many other writers are rejecting are the dollars implicated in the clash flow of arms sales and war funds. One’s personal income is considered a taboo topic, especially in the western world. I was taught from a young age that you shouldn’t ask how much money someone earns, because it belongs to the withheld “private” life. It wouldn’t be polite to intrude upon this personal information. And maybe because of this implicit aversion to talking explicitly about the money we earn, New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino was hoping we’d turn a blind eye when she accepted a sponsored partnership with Airbnb. Tolentino, who previously expressed support of the Palestinian people, has been collaborating with Airbnb to host an intimate literary experience. The description boasts a romantic evening for those who purchase the $65 ticket: Tolentino will meet you at Brooklyn’s McNally Jackson, where she will select a few curated books for you and then engage in “media gossip” upstairs with drinks and eats.
Tolentino first announced the partnership on Instagram to her 125k followers. The post elicited immediate backlash. The partnership symbolized a betrayal for many, since so many of her pieces interrogate capitalism and pervasive internet phenomenons. The sponcon represents a succumbing to the very influencer culture that capitalism breeds, glorifying overconsumption and deceptive standards of living. More importantly, the BDS boycott list includes Airbnb, a company that advertises hundreds of vacation homes and luxurious rentals on occupied land in the West Bank. She later deleted the post, but the collaboration seems to be going strong still.
Earlier this year, Tolentino published a beautifully written piece about the derealizing reality we live in. “My Brain Broke” argues that time and the events captured in it have become hazy, fake, and too horrific for the mind to cohere as a sequence of real occurrences: “events [seem] inconceivable as they materialize in headlines and then are swiftly carried to the purgatorial cognitive landfill of things that have not been fully absorbed or processed or fought against but have been pressed into reality.” She cites the war in Gaza as one of the primary news headlines that caused feelings of dissociation. Her civic sense of duty has been numbed by the sheer overload of condensed events, the utter apathy of our government, and the lack of expectation for her words to incite change.
Tolentino’s essay admits what I forecast will be one of the fatal tendencies shared amongst digital users, how “it’s easier to retreat from the concept of reality than to acknowledge that things in the news are real.” She then references artificial intelligence and ChatGPT as contributors for the slipping ability to perceive and distinguish between real and fake. All of this is very well and true. A.I. lacks intention, misinforms, and instills a false sense of choice and authority in the user to generate information and images. It bases its content off of our pre-existing reality, then distorts it. All information is neutral to the chatbot, leading users to misinformation and extreme biases. The ability to distinguish authenticity is slowly slipping away. What is dangerous is how these are the very sensibilities to form distinctions between what we deem right versus wrong. Unfortunately I fear that what “My Brain Broke” really reveals is how Tolentino’s judgment in how to use her privileges is creeping away. Was she hoping we’d think the sponsorship was a fake? That it might slip between posts about the Trump scandals, Temu ads, and clips of Pikachu fleeing demonstrations in Turkey she sees in her feed? The piece aptly illustrates the dejecting, maddening struggle to hold those in power accountable. What do we do when we see a cultural critic like Tolentino cite the genocide in Gaza only to then accept a sponsorship with Airbnb, a company that continues to be complicit in the violations of Palestinian rights?
Allow me to separate the text from its author when I say this: Tolentino, you’re right that it’s easier to pretend that reality doesn’t exist, that the news is misinformed and saturated with fake images and fake reports. Yes, it’s easy to succumb into emotional collapse and increasingly difficult to know what’s real versus fake. Maybe in an ideal reworked version of the cultural economy, we wouldn’t care about the writers of our books and Rooney’s dreams could be realized–we could read her books and ignore what the writer does in her personal life. But until then, the reality holds true that greater access to institutional power means you possess more responsibility to resist derealization. When you attain enough notice as a writer that your email inbox receives sponsorship offers from multi-billion dollar corporations, it means you have sway in the cultural economy, and this is real.
In 2022, McNally Jackson (which keeps recurring as the scene of controversy in this essay) launched McNally Editions after Lorin Stein pitched the idea. Stein had resigned from his position as editor in chief of The Paris Review a few years prior, after admitting to sexual relations with interns and writers. Sarah McNally, owner of McNally Jackson and co-founder of McNally Editions, responded to her staff’s dismay at the hiring of Stein by acknowledging their complaints, even admitting that Stein was “definitely guilty.” But still kept him on board.
In October, Andrew Fedorov’s piece in The Nation covered the new hiring of Stein as the new executive editor of Tablet. Jeanne McCulloch, a board member of Tablet, spoke of her delight upon seeing Stein’s talents return to an editorial role. Though she clarified herself: “I’m talking professionally here, not personally.” But the controversy was never about Stein’s talents. Institutions will forgive and treat controversy with apathy when they can afford to. In 2023, Tablet’s reported revenue was $8.44 million, comprised 93.9% of donor contributions. Issues of the magazine are smattered with ads selling Peter Thiel’s products, all flashily shown to their elite readership who can afford their subscription options that range from $250 to $1,800 a year. The readership of Tablet isn’t the kind to regard whether Stein committed sexual misconduct in the workplace. But I’m not really sure this is the readership who cares about Stein’s professional talents, either. Tablet is ultimately a political publication rather than a literary one. Tablet’s October issue declares Palestinians as enemies that need to be more militantly defeated by Israel. Articles released from this year claim that Hamas has won the culture war and is using the media to manufacture a “genocide,” as if all the photos of starving civilians were hollow lies, some botched PR stunt the world has fallen for. Their articles bleed in racism and misogyny. Repeatedly, they’ve spread misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Let’s get this out of the way: I still consider Tolentino a fantastic writer. I can admit that Lorin Stein edited beautiful issues of The Paris Review. But when it turns out you’ve participated in misconduct in the workplace or accepted a sponcon from a company with views contradictory to what you’ve previously claimed, I’m going to feel angry, to feel like these writers are predatorial and hypocrites. And it has nothing to do with the quality of their work. Institutions are places with barred entry–not everyone gets let in. You are in a position highly coveted by others as a staff writer for the New Yorker or editor-in-chief for The Paris Review. Tolentino earns thousands of dollars and new readership with each article she writes identifying the flaws of capitalism, and then goes on to cite her credentials as a New Yorker staff writer in the Airbnb Experience listing. Stein’s likely earning at least $200k a year at Tablet. He came out of his sexual misconduct unscathed. The chatter about Tolentino’s sponcon will die out into a whisper, and she’ll end up cashing her check. Almost never will a “cancelled” public figure actually disappear. Such is true in nearly every industry. I cannot help but wonder if some other editor exists, who might fill these coveted positions. Someone who not only has the same talents as a Tolentino or Stein, but also possesses the capacity to say no to the alluring glow of dirty money or abuses of power. Undeniably, some other discomfort lies in how no such public figure exists, the impossibility of these expectations. Let me say it again: money sways more than words. If placed in these positions, would I succumb to the same moral mishaps? Would you?
This is great-- love how nuanced your analysis is, Ruby!
This is great. More of this!