Timesman A "Creep" To Women In Memoir Cuts
Jennifer Senior's affectionate profile of former coworker David Carr examines what the Times media reporter left out of his tell-all memoir of crack addiction, drug dealing and physical abuse: Being a big jerk to many of the women he drew into his orbit. Carr's many female friends, Senior said, were shocked to read about him choking his girlfriend, and probably also would have had trouble imagining with some of what got cut:
When I recently asked him what spools of confession were sitting on the cutting-room floor, he didn't hesitate. "I was very busy with women. Probably pathologically so."
...So unlovely was his behavior that readers of early drafts of his book recommended he skip certain stories-they tapped the narrative off its orbit, rendering him less good guy than brute. "People said, , ‘There's enough sort of misogyny and objectification without this kind of fratty stuff,' " he said. "It made me seem like a thug and a player, and that was one tick of grossness too many."
....Certain female characters dropped out of the book because he couldn't find a way to write about them without looking like a creep. He mentions an HIV-positive woman, for instance, whose affections he toyed with, then hurt.
And yet there's a certain charm to Carr's bracing confessions for this article, just as in his book and, judging by the profile, just as in his friendships.
