Gawker Book Club: Extra-Timely Edition
Some people like to say that living well is the best revenge. Well, living well is pretty good revenge, but the best? We think that'd have to be something along the lines of: writing a roman a clef about your evil ex-boss that's being published at around the same time that said ex-boss is getting fired and dragged through the mud in the media. Congratulations, Bridie Clark! You're one lucky bitch, and your book, Because She Can, is the next subject of our occasional Book Club. If you've sat around the coffee table with us for previous installments of the Club, you recall that the way this works is that we flip to a random page and give you a little dose. But this time, we're going to focus on the bits of the book that squeaked most narrowly through what must've been the most scrupulous legal read EVER. After the jump, our heroine's job interview with Rudith Jegan. Okay, okay, "Vivian Grant."
"So, you thinking about having babies anytime soon?" Vivian wore a black power suit and an impressive emerald necklace, but her sprawled pose — a leg hooked over the chair next to her, an arm draped across its back, finger twirling her hair — evoked a woman of leisure, not a powerhouse publisher. It was as if we were two girlfriends out for a relaxed Sunday brunch.
"Hmm?" I responded eloquently, figuring I must have misheard her.
"Babies," she repeated, as if it were the most natural question with which to open an interview. "So many of my female editors tell me they're waiting for kids — waiting to meet Mr. Right, waiting to get to a certain place in their careers. One of my editors must be, like, thirty-six? Thirty-seven? She's married, but waiting for God knows what. I don't know what she's thinking. I tell her all the time to get on the program! If I'd taken that approach, I wouldn't have my sons. Women are supposed to get pregnant in their early teens, you know. We make such a big fucking deal about preventing teenage pregnancy, but that's what nature intended. Girls are really supposed to get knocked up at thirteen."
Nice, right? And we haven't even gotten to the part where 'Vivian' talks about Jewish lawyers.*
*(kidding, but there is better stuff to come.)