Spent the last week absorbed by the editor's world of Adrienne Miller who ran the fiction department for Esquire 1998-2006 as their fiction offerings ebbed away, and its online version emphasized menswear, martinis and TV/movie recommendations.
Absorbing two-part story of working in that environment of Great Male Narcissists (describing Roth, Mailer, Updike), where she collaborated with Dave Eggers also working at Esquire, and her very close relationship with David Foster Wallace. Miller, a 5'11" Ohioan in her Twenties with little experience and a pet rabbit has a talent for editing which Wallace capitalized on. Describing their fractious relationship, in bed Dave "passed his hands over the length of my body without touching me. There was a current of electricity from his fingertips...This is a snake putting a spell on a mouse," she says.
"He paused, his tone shifting again, going from vaguely malevolent to sweet as marzipan, "You know, we like each other." It will not go well.

The editor did not want her personal feelings about the writer to impact her aesthetic and literary judgment on a piece, for example.
"I didn't yet understand that the most important thing in the adult world is to keep your cool, keep your mouth shut, stay n your own lane, and state an opinion only when you know which side is winning. I still l didn't understand the most accepted 'intelligence' is merely the stock intelligence of popular opinion."

I went to my bookshelf convinced that I had a copy of [b:Infinite Jest|6759|Infinite Jest|David Foster Wallace|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446876799l/6759._SY75_.jpg|3271542] which I've never read, but I must have dreamed it. Not there. I've got [a:John Updike|6878|John Updike|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1419249254p2/6878.jpg] and [a:Philip Roth|463|Philip Roth|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1399886959p2/463.jpg] in their alphabetical place, no [a:Norman Mailer|7927|Norman Mailer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1431164017p2/7927.jpg], and no [a:David Foster Wallace|4339|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1580514295p2/4339.jpg]. When he kills himself, Miller mourns the man and his genius by bottling up her grief and fury over her "world of competition and comparison." As though she's responsible. She wraps up her memoir with his comments on the "theory of eternal recurrence" where time is a circle not a straight line and "events in your life repeat themselves indefinitely." As [a:David Foster Wallace|4339|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1580514295p2/4339.jpg] says, ignoring his own warning, "This is why you can never be an asshole to anyone. No one every really goes away."

A final word from [a:David Foster Wallace|4339|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1580514295p2/4339.jpg] in his novel:

"I didn't have any special grudges. I didn't fail an exam or get dumped by anybody. All these types. Hurt themselves. I didn't want to especially hurt myself. Or like punish. I don't hate myself. I just wanted out. I didn't want to play anymore is all. I wanted to just stop being conscious. I'm a whole different type. I wanted to stop feeling this way. If I could have just put myself in a really long coma I would have done that. Or given myself shock I would have done that. Instead.”
― David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest ( )

An unfair rating to Adrienne Miller, whose writing is very good, but my disgust for David Foster Wallace compels me to give this one star ( )

I read some of the reviews before I began this book, so I cheated a bit; even so the book was about being a woman in a man’s world and her observations are pretty cogent on that score. (Nothing has changed, by the way.) On the other hand, it was also about being a literary editor (a rare bird these days, at least in magazines). Finally, and probably most importantly, it was about the author’s very personal and professional relationship with David Foster Wallace. Frankly, I haven’t much interest at all in the so-called literary world (I read for fun and escape these days), but I found the book extremely well-written and quite philosophical on the meaning of work, the rule of men, the struggle of women in the workplace and the emergence of “self-“ all through a very personal filter; her voice was a voice I could listen to and hear. ( )

This is a pretty wonderful book. Yes, as the other reviews state this book spends a good deal of time looking at Miller's relationship with David Foster Wallace. That relationship was a truly formative one, clearly one of the most important of Miller's life, and through the anger and meanness its clear that she loved him. I think he loved her too, but that is less clear, and since this is her story it is also less important.

DFW was a deeply troubled man, but also a genius - not because people say so, but because every time I read his work (I have read most of what he wrote, and he was really prolific) even the puff pieces, I see something I have never seen before. He was a true original. He was also sick and cruel and manipulative, but that does not make him less than he was or diminish his impact on literature or on Adrienne Miller. I found the DFW sections fascinating. I also enjoyed the reminiscences of the very last moments of the heyday of print journalism. Some people are interesting in their marrow, DFW, Hunter Thompson, Abraham Lincoln are great examples. Some people are interesting because of what they have done, and what has happened around them, and Adrienne Miller is a great example of that. (I am sure she is a wonderful person, she seems smart and lovely and grounded, but most of us are good and not inherently fascinating.) I know its supposed to be all feministy to reject great male writers who are not feminist. I reject that rejection. If you want me to turn in my feminist card I am happy to do that, but I have been fighting for women's autonomy, physical and intellectual, since before most of the pearl-clutching reviewers were born so I'm good. People treat each other like shit in relationships (whether family, friends or lovers), that is especially true of narcissists who hate themselves (I recently read Marquis deSade 120 Days of Sodom and oh.my.god!) That does not make either party less-than, and it does not make the relationships less interesting. Recommended. I did think the beginning dragged a little given that it covered a point where her rise was meteoric, but once Miller got to Esquire it moved with alacrity. A very high 4, but not quite a 5. ( )