Books, Arts & Manners: The Selling of the Young

Once one twenty-year-old writer had published a book, a lot of other twenty-year-olds were convinced they could write books too. And, unfortunately, many of them did. A publicist’s feeding-frenzy ensued: the writers, most of them just out of college, became literature’s Brat Pack, and America had yet another lost generation on its hands. The most recent additions to the Pack are Jill Eisenstadt and Rae Lawrence, whose debut novels—coupled with some second novels from their trendy forerunners—have accounted for the largest onslaught of disillusioned young writers to date.

Even before Miss Eisenstadt’s novel From Rockaway was published, the film rights were snapped up by Sidney (Out of Africa’) Pollack, and her face was paraded around magazines like Vanity Fair, New York, and Scene. Her background is disarmingly simple: she was a lifeguard in high school; she went to college and graduate school. Rae Lawrence’s background is more confusing. In her novel Satisfaction, she writes, “December Dunne was going north to reinvent herself. As what, she didn’t exactly know.” Reinvent herself is exactly what Rae Lawrence—or rather Ruth Liebman—did. After assuming the pen name “Rae Lawrence,” she wrote a piece for The New York Times Magazine passing herself off as an anonymous secretary who “wrote the proverbial ‘big book’ and struck it rich.” Miss Lawrence did not mention going to Harvard or writing for the Crimson or spending two years at Viking Press. When she was exposed as something of an insider to the world of publishing, there was the usual scandal. The upshot, of course, was that anyone who didn’t already own Satisfaction bought it. Miss Lawrence, like Miss Eisenstadt, was instantly dubbed a spokesperson for her generation. In her fiction, a new voice was promised.

JG

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Jeff Giles

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Once one twenty-year-old writer had published a book, a lot of other twenty-year-olds were convinced they could write books too. And, unfortunately, many of them did. A publicist’s feeding-frenzy ensued: the writers, most of them just out of college, became literature’s Brat Pack, and America had yet another lost generation on its hands. The most recent additions to the Pack are Jill Eisenstadt and Rae Lawrence, whose debut novels—coupled with some second novels from their trendy forerunners—have accounted for the largest onslaught of disillusioned young writers to date.

Even before Miss Eisenstadt’s novel From Rockaway was published, the film rights were snapped up by Sidney (Out of Africa’) Pollack, and her face was paraded around magazines like Vanity Fair, New York, and Scene. Her background is disarmingly simple: she was a lifeguard in high school; she went to college and graduate school. Rae Lawrence’s background is more confusing. In her novel Satisfaction, she writes, “December Dunne was going north to reinvent herself. As what, she didn’t exactly know.” Reinvent herself is exactly what Rae Lawrence—or rather Ruth Liebman—did. After assuming the pen name “Rae Lawrence,” she wrote a piece for The New York Times Magazine passing herself off as an anonymous secretary who “wrote the proverbial ‘big book’ and struck it rich.” Miss Lawrence did not mention going to Harvard or writing for the Crimson or spending two years at Viking Press. When she was exposed as something of an insider to the world of publishing, there was the usual scandal. The upshot, of course, was that anyone who didn’t already own Satisfaction bought it. Miss Lawrence, like Miss Eisenstadt, was instantly dubbed a spokesperson for her generation. In her fiction, a new voice was promised.