Kaye Gibbons, Grrr

I think Kaye Gibbons is out to make my life miserable! Seriously, that's the only explanation I can conceive to explain her behavior the past couple of years.

As some of you know, I spent 4 years at the University of Mississippi and I loved most every minute of my time there. Mostly I just loved the town of Oxford. One of the few things I did NOT like about Oxford (well besides overly eager cops who would make a student PUSH his bicycle home because he deigned to ride it after dark without a headlight), though, was the "Village" clique. I can't describe them perfectly, but they were the type to hang out at Square Books (the greatest bookstore EVER) wearing their berets, sipping their fancy coffee drinks, and bemoaning all the backwardness in the state. I won't try to explain just why they bothered me so much (sort of like Vol Abroad's recent encounter with the faux Southern accent woman). Anyway, Kaye Gibbons is now firmly a member of that group.

If you don't know old Kaye, she once wrote a classic Southern novel -- Ellen Foster. The novels that followed were good, but she couldn't top Ellen Foster. The last couple of years, though, Kay has just gone bonkers. I really do think she's become a bitter, angry, hateful woman.

The first strike against her was her debut column in the inaugural issue (of the 3rd or 4th incarnation) of The Oxford American magazine. She spent the entire column complaining about how some morons had the audactity to attend her sessions at writing conferences (where she was paid to appear) and dare ask her QUESTIONS ABOUT WRITING! Didn't these people know the great Kaye Gibbons couldn't be bothered by such trivialities? Yes, I understood her main point, that there is no "magic formula" for writing. There is no correct answer to, "How many metaphors should be in a literary novel?", but these folks had paid their bucks and, I imagine, showed up for two reasons: First, I bet, they simply loved books. Second, they wanted to write something and they just couldn't figure out how. Sure, lots of their questions probably were annoying and sort of stupid, but no one forced Kaye to take those gigs. I can even see how Kaye might chuckle with her fellow "real writers" about the morons, but how dull do you have to be not to realize that was an inappropriate topic for a column in a magazine geared to Southern folks who love books and might want to try to write one? I would imagine that lots of those folks Kaye lampooned were the very folks the OA wanted to lure into subscribing. Needless to say, Kaye wasn't back in issue 2.

I had almost put that out of my mind until good friend and blog reader, Ang, told me she had attempted to read the sequel to Ellen Foster. According to Ang, and the reviewers at Amazon, it is impenetrable rot (not her exact words).

Still, I figured Kaye had just made a miscalculation by trying to write a sequel to a beloved novel -- a peril that has tripped up many a writer. Yesterday, though, I received the latest issue of Paste magazine in the mail. Sure enough, there was an essay by Kaye titled, "Calling Existential Movers & Storage, or Why I'm Leaving the South". The title itself was not a good omen, still I went ahead and read the piece. I don't know how else to explain it; Kaye Gibbons has lost it!

In this piece, Kaye attempts to explain why she is leaving NC for NY -- at least I think that's what she's attempting. She begins by fantasizing about dropping writing in favor of her other obsession: cleaning. She imagines that she can sneak off and get a job as a maid at the local Holiday Inn.

Mabye it's fume-induced, but soon I'm inventing answers to justify my overqualified presence to the manager.

Okay, Kaye, don't start your essay by pointing out how overqualified you are for your dream job. A few paragraphs later she imagines she'd be fired from her cleaning job pretty quickly.

I imagine being hired and then rapidly fired by the Holiday Inn on some measly and unmemorable grounds, when I suspect the other maids have plotted my departure. On the verge of cleaning paint off baseboards, I'll tell myself I surely hadn't been perceived as snobbish, only stubborn ...

Nah, Kaye, no way you could have come off as snobbish!

After that, she moves on to her I get no respect lament.

This particular Holiday Inn is in Raleigh, N.C., so the eye-rolling attitude he'll likely express toward my plight will no doubt arise from an incredulity that I could've been making a living writing, being Southern and female and all. At the most, I could be a dabbler in mysteries or romances.

Yeah, Kaye, there have NEVER been any serious, successful, respected, Southern female writers. Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Ellen Gilchrist, etc. -- hacks!

From there, Kaye, complains about her McNeighborhood: a place where neighbors DARE to ask how she's doing or express concern that she's working too hard. How did Kaye end up in the McNeighborhood? Yep, she CHOSE to move there after she fled the "old-money neighborhood" she'd been living in (also voluntarily, I might add):

The blandness of suburbia was a relief after years of living absurdly beyond my means in an old-money neighborhood in a house I would've needed to write excellent porn to afford. Living there required living a lie or finding peace as the 'hood character, both unnecessary enterprises and wastes of time.

Once again, bless your heart, Kaye. I don't know how you stood it!

Finally, she explains why she is moving to New York. As near as I can figure, she's moving to the Big Apple because some local kids (maybe students who'd been reading Ellen Foster in class?) broke into her home and rummaged around her writing room. Now I understand her being pissed about that and about the fact that the kids' parents didn't take it as seriously as she did. Still, does she think a move to New York will reduce the chance of home invasion? I'd speculate that if a group of locals break into her New York abode, they'll likely do more than rummage around and take pictures with Kaye's camera (which they didn't steal by the way).

The whole thing just reinforced my opinion that Kaye Gibbons has gone off the deep end. Good luck with your move to NY and good luck with your writing. St. Caffeine, though, will not be reading your future work.