The Allure of Anonymity, a New Yorker thread…

UPDATE: The New Yorker threads will now focus on stories and articles pertinent to creative writing and the fiction community. There are other blogs that cover the journalism side of the magazine, such as John Bucher’s New Yorker Comment. In changing the focus, I hope to make the threads more of a dialogue than a recap. Plus, while I love non-fiction, I’m primarily a fiction writer, so I will naturally have more to say about this aspect of the magazine.

Another reason for the scaling back is I will soon be blogging the Oxford American. Yes, I know this is a Southern mag, and I reside in the Pacific Northwest, but I think the contents transcend regionalism. I’m completely blown away by this magazine, and I hope you will be too.

Now, onto this week’s discussion…

From: The New Yorker: March 12, 2007.
In “Dear Diary,” Jeffery Toobin introduces us to Zoe Margolis, the woman behind the blog: Girl with a One-Track Mind: Diary of a Sex Fiend. In the summer of 2005, an agent suggested Margolis turn the stories into a book. She did, and published Girl with a One-Track Mind: Confessions of the Seductress Next Door, in the UK, under the name of Abby Lee. You see, nobody in Margolis’ circle knew she was behind the blog, or the book, and Margolis wanted to keep it that way. “Since there was the shield of anonymity, I thought I could say anything. I wrote things I wouldn’t tell my best friend,” she said.

Then, in August of last year, the Sunday Times discovered her identity and threatened to out her in a sleazy way. Margolis, knowing that she would be revealed one way or another, decided to grant the Guardian an interview to spite the Sunday Times. The interview generated more interest in the book, which now has an American edition titled simply: Diary of a Sex Fiend. Margolis hates the title and goes on to say, “It’s absolutely not possible to write the way I used to, because it doesn’t feel ethical… I can’t express myself as openly.”

This got me thinking about how debilitating it is to think about your work being published while you’re trying to write it. If I write my story this way, it might fit this publication. Oh, that swear word. So and so won’t accept that. And so on and so on. The truth of the piece, of the characters, is immediately lost upon such contemplations. Still, most of us write, under our own names, with the goal of publishing in mind. Does this mean our work is reserved, or skewed, from the outset? Would your story change if you had no intention of ever publishing it? I, personally, cannot answer that. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’m always wondering who will read it. So, do I hold back? I don’t think so. But if it’s something that would be uncomfortably recognizable to my life, or the people in it, I fictionalize it, screw it up as much as I can. I suppose then, that fiction is a form of anonymity.

As far as non-fiction, Margolis has it right. Anonymity is freedom. All of the non-fiction work I’ve written has felt terribly strained. I fret over the tiniest detail, wanting to represent me, my family, my life, in the best possible light. But mostly, this tension is not born from fear of what others might think. I don’t, after all, write a sex diary. Rather, it’s more along the lines of: Am I ready to get that in depth with that part of my life. Which is an entirely different issue, and one in which public anonymity cannot resolve, as it’s from myself that I hide…