In this week's installment of the Times Book Review, David Kamp faces backlash from the banjo-toting patriots of Appalachia, who seem to think that their trailerpark luxuries don't make them white trash. And they're right: trashy inbred babies know no color. Then there's an oh-so-timely, post-Fashion Week review written by none other than Josef Joffe, creator of our favorite "girl about town," Jessica Joffe. We've no idea if he's half as well-dressed, but if you imagine him writing the review while wearing Marc Jacobs, the whole thing reads a lot better. Intern Alexis holds your hand through all that, plus the horror of Ayelet Waldman, after the jump.

Letters

Uh oh... David Kamp's in trouble. Not since Michael Jackson sang "Jew me/Sue me/Everybody do me/Kick me/Kike me" have the masses been more offended by a simple turn of phrase. In his recent review of "Self-Made Man" by Norah Vincent, Kamp uses the term "white trash" (in quotes), and this week, we have three very angry NYTBR readers. Katherine Belisle writes that, "Kamp's words are offensive and snobbish, as well as wrong." Robert McCarthy claims the phrase "smells of blue-blooded ignorance," and Kevin A. Nolan says that, "Calling anyone 'trash' is offensive, reading it in the Times is shocking and describing skilled workers this way is ignorant of wage rates. The plumber probably makes more than the reviewer."

To all this, Kamp responds that he used the term in quotations on purpose, that he wasn't an Appalachia-hater and "For goodness sake, it should be perfectly obvious that I'm not denigrating plumbers, appliance salesmen and construction workers as trash!" After all, Kamp's toilet doesn't plunge itself, people!!!


JOFFE!!!

We always suspected that Sam Tanenhaus was an avid New York Social Diary reader, and that every Fashion Week he just crosses his fingers and toes hoping Kate Schelter takes his photo for Style.com. This is why we knew it was only a matter of days before the NYTBR jumped on the Jessica Joffe wagon. While Sam couldn't track down Jessica (we hear she's lost somewhere in Ryan Adams' oily mop, looking to jump out and key Lindsay Lohan in the face), Papa Joffe was available. Grand Daddy Joffe, aka Josef Joffe, reviews chancellor of Oxford, Chris Patten's new book "Cousins and Strangers: America, Britain, and Europe in a New Century." Turns out Josef's the publisher and editor of Die Zeit in Hamburg and a fellow of the Hoover Institution and the Institute for International Studies at Stanford. Wait, hold on, gotta make a phone call—

Ring, ring. Ring, ring.

Hey, Anna Wintour, it's Intern Alexis. I hear you're looking for a new accessories editor... FYI, Jessica Joffe's father just finished his book, "Uberpower: America's Imperial Temptation" and we hear he's looking for a new gig...


Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
 By Ayelet Waldman
Reviewed by Chelsea Cain

Chelsea Cain lactates all over Ayelet Waldman's new novel "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits." Like a wet nurse, she oozes: "...A moving and darkly funny read..." Well, shit: that makes Cain the first human with ovaries (we assume) to actually like Waldman, who's best known for loving her husband Michael Chabon more than the babies she made with him. Oh, motherly horrors — may the masses of mommy message boards unleash their fury upon the CainWench!