Guardian article about Kate Clanchy "The book that tore publishing apart: ‘Harm has been done, and now everyone’s afraid’"

[miri1985]

www.theguardian.com/books/2022/jun/18/the-book-that-tore-publishing-apart-harm-has-been-done-and-now-everyones-afraid

Interesting article but Sarah Ditum said it on twitter better than I could "I think it's a major flaw that this article broadly assumes good faith on the part of cancel-culture agitators. A lot of them are perfectly self-interested and borderline sociopathic" twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1538144622643494912?cxt=HHwWgIC-3dCYy9gqAAAA

"A lot of them are perfectly self-interested and borderline sociopathic"

After the Times published a supportive interview with Clanchy, one of her original witch hunters critic's, went for the journalist who wrote the interview. It was quite something to behold. 👀

I think people forget that Kate herself started the scandal,

Yes it sounds that way. I’ve not read the book so can’t comment on whether the criticism of it is fair. But what stands out for me is Clanchy’s reaction to being challenged and criticised when that is surely part and parcel of being a writer. Goodreads reviewers aren’t professional critics, they’re just punters expressing an opinion. I visit the site pretty regularly and I’ve never seen a writer hit out at a reviewer like Clanchy did, never mind go on Twitter to mobilise support against them. I think it’s extraordinary behaviour. (And that’s not even going near whether or not Clanchy lied.)

I do feel sorry for Clanchy now. She sounds broken. But I also feel for that original Goodreads reviewer and for the black writers featured in the linked article, who were subjected to despicable racist abuse for expressing their opinions. They were entitled to free speech too.

chimene suleyman is a "woman of colour?"

Her father's family are from Northern Cyprus, she was born and bred in London. So does this make every Turkish, Greek, Spanish and Italian woman a "woman of colour?" Got to get it right, would hate to be cancelled

Oh and she's another person who's behaviour on twitter seems bullying to me.

But moving on, don't describe anyone ever again. Descriptions are offensive.

I agree with this.

I think Monisha Rajesh absolutely nailed it: "You’re not being cancelled, you’re being challenged. You’re not used to being challenged, and, now you are, you don’t know what to do about it"

We should feel free to challenge people we don't agree with. And they should be free to defend themselves. More open debate, more understanding that most people can't be neatly packaged into goodies and baddies. Fewer witch hunts, less fear.

I mean, yes, she was being challenged. But she was being challenged in such a way that any disagreement with the challenge was met with a tsunami of outraged disgust. There were two sides in the discussion (even among people who felt that Clanchy’s comments were wrong) but any expression of an alternative view was treated by one side on the debate (and not the other) as a visceral personal attack. Which it wasn’t. There is such a thing as free speech that others find offensive, and they are entitled to say they find it offensive, but then others are entitled to say they don’t as well.

‘Authors shouldn't be publishing racist, fatphobic, classist, antisemitic work. I'm not sure how anyone can argue against that.’

You can argue with it. I don’t like (and don’t read) stuff like that. But it’s not illegal to be classist. People can publish something with an unpleasant description of a fat person in it (or a thin person). This isn’t a censored society (yet).

Descriptions are offensive. I think that’s disingenuous nonsense. Of course it’s OK to describe people and there are pretty well-known limits around descriptions that are considered racist or ablist etc, which have been accepted for ages.

I think one issue, on top of her apparent insensitivity to these widely known taboos, is that Clanchy is a poet and forgot that writing about real people who might recognise themselves is not the same as poetry and it’s not just about the author’s unfiltered thoughts being expressed as lyrically as possible, there’s a responsibility to people you’ve used as material for your book.

I do understand that some authors might be more cautious, and as PPs have said, this isn’t the only thing that applies to. But it’s not true to say physical description isn’t ok at all. Tell that to David Walliams.

There is a particular issue here in it being a non-fiction book, the power imbalance between the writer and the subjects, and a tone reminiscent of rich white attitudes to black, Jewish and poor people 200 years ago.

There are two issues here getting tangled up IMO. One over whether KC’s book and subsequent behaviour were out of order and it was reasonable to criticise them - I think they were but that’s something we can all debate and have different opinions on.

And another over “cancel culture” itself and how badly people behave and how extreme they are in their abuse to people on both sides of an argument. In this case, there was appalling bullying and nastiness on both sides - and I was shocked by some people I’d previously thought I liked. Also completely befuddled at some people who claimed not to be able to see the issue.

And yes the publisher is guilty of a massive fail. That’s one reason I’m sorry for her. They should have been on this at first manuscript stage.

It's a kind of discomfort you might get away with in fiction but pretty gross in non-fiction, particularly in relation to children, "composite" or otherwise

Exactly- sections of it could have been slotted easily into a novel by Amis (father or son) or Lionel Shriver or Jonathan Coe.

I didn't see any of the abuse the 3 women of colour got but I do agree that after the initial episode the 3 of them seem to be incapable of letting any mention of Clanchy go past.

2 of them, Singh and Suleiman seem to be quite unpleasant and Singh herself got ripped to pieces for really quite vile comments she made on Twitter about an easily identifiable student of hers. I also agree that "women of colour" is stretched to breaking point for Suleiman unless being of southern Mediterranean origin makes one a person of colour.

That of course doesn't excuse the original attacks on them and nothing excuses Clanchy going on to Twitter to launch an attack on the Good Reads reviewer.

That's an excellent summary.

If anyone except Kate had written sexualised comments about young girls and written judgemental things about a raped child and a raped child's body, Mumsnet would have torn them to pieces. Her weaponizing "anti-woke" ideology has inured her to a lot of criticism.

Normally this site and this section in particular is extremely hot on calling out anything that even remotely hints at sexualisation of children. Things that are far more mild than what's in Kate's book have had a pasting here. Yet Kate gets a pass, just because she pretends she's a victim of "wokedom" and "cancel culture"?

She wrote a bad book, got very mildly criticised for it, and successfully managed to get a lot of money and fame from a scandal of her own creation.

Pretending to be a victim of cancel culture is extremely profitable!

Apologies for getting Suleyman's name wrong.

I think she had a point about "Cypriot bosoms" That phrase survived the editing.

twitter.com/chimenesuleyman/status/1538255210937733122?s=20&t=sc0In_1FmqYqfv_A4t-dng

Isn't the real story here about how the book wasn't edited and was published and lauded, showing the extreme lack of diversity within publishers and book industry. This is a textbook case of how unconscious bias, ignorance and racism/classism flourishes (unintentionally) when everyone making decisions and in power are white? And the white fragility nonsense of it being worse being accused of racism than the act itself.
The publishers should be in the frame more than the author.
It's hard to be wrong and called up for it. But there are graceful ways to deal with that- self-reflection, listening, entering into dialogue for example. If you are going to put words and ideas into the world, you have to take it on the chin when you cause offence and betray your own prejudices.

Isn't the real story here about how the book wasn't edited and was published and lauded, showing the extreme lack of diversity within publishers and book industry. This is a textbook case of how unconscious bias, ignorance and racism/classism flourishes (unintentionally) when everyone making decisions and in power are white?

Yes totally agree. And I think that's one reason why so many in publishing have embraced trans ideology - it gives them a way to be woke/virtue-signal, and in some cases also identify themselves as oppressed by being NB or whatever, while not upsetting the other deeply ingrained inequalities that give them an advantage. Again probably not intentional in a lot of cases - they just reassure themselves that they are a good person by announcing pronouns and cancelling feminists, and don't think any deeper.

I mean, yes, she was being challenged. But she was being challenged in such a way that any disagreement with the challenge was met with a tsunami of outraged disgust. There were two sides in the discussion (even among people who felt that Clanchy’s comments were wrong) but any expression of an alternative view was treated by one side on the debate (and not the other) as a visceral personal attack. Which it wasn’t. There is such a thing as free speech that others find offensive, and they are entitled to say they find it offensive, but then others are entitled to say they don’t as well.

That simply is not accurate though. If anything it was the opposite way round.

Clanchy wasn't "challenged", she had a single bad review online, by a regular member of the public. Nobody tweeted her, emailed her, contacted her publisher, came to her directly. Clanchy tried to oppress a reader's right to free speech because she couldn't handle a negative review which she'd actively sought out.

The "tsunami of outraged disgust" was aimed at anyone who critiqued Clanchy's book, not the opposite way round.

any expression of an alternative view was treated by one side on the debate (and not the other) as a visceral personal attack.

That is literally what Kate Clanchy did: lied that she was being personally attacked and treated alternate views on her book as a visceral personal attack.

others are entitled to say they don’t as well.
Who's saying they aren't?

I have not seen a single person say "I have read the book and I personally don't find it offensive to make sexualised comments about young girls, claim someone with a big nose must be lying about not being Jewish, and make comments about raped children's bodies". Many of Clanchy's supporters don't seem to be interested in engaging with the content of the book, but either ranting about "cancel culture" and "wokeness" (putting ideology above facts) or cherry picking a couple of quotes from the book about skin colour and ignoring the rest.

Authors are incredibly vulnerable to censorship and authoritarianism - and they are also among the people most viciously fighting FOR censorship and authoritarianism. Sounds like Kate Clanchy managed to take both sides at once.

I don't care if the book contains words and descriptions that some people find offensive. I don't care. That's no reason to censor it or cancel the author. The price of free speech is having to encounter ideas we really don't like.

That's no reason to censor it or cancel the author.

But she hasn't been "cancelled". She literally landed a big new publishing deal, got a new book release, and absolute shit tons of media coverage and half a dozen major article commissions out of it. That is the exact opposite of being cancelled.

I don't care if the book contains words and descriptions that some people find offensive.
So you're cool with sexualising children and shaming raped girls? You don't think non-fiction books should ever be edited even if overtly racist or misogynistic?

I wonder what posters would be saying if a trans author was coming under fire for writing a book that sexualised children and referred to white working class children as feral fatties. Somehow I doubt there'd be this vociferous defence of "free speech."

www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44031939-some-kids-i-taught-and-what-they-taught-me

The review and summary by the reviewer called Cecily is a good summary of events.

But this whole hoohah apparently started because Clanchy couldn't deal with "ideas she didn't like"- namely the negative review on GoodReads. Clanchy , apparently, launched an attack on that reviewer, whilst claiming the reviewer had fabricated quotes.

The book is only available in censored form now but the Good Reads review I linked to has quotes from the original text. They are indefensible.

If a black author had published those bigoted and disgusting quotes about white people there'd be half a dozen outraged threads on MN trying to get the book cancelled. None of this "but we can't censor books just because some people found them offensive!"

It shows how hypocritical how the whole Identity Politics thing is, that the things MN and Feminist Chat are usually so hot on (sexualisation of children, and "anti-white racism") just get chucked out of the window the second it's a writer you're ideologically aligned with, ie "anti-woke."

Taken from GR reviewer Cecily's review.

All the critical comments about weight are applied to girls, & most are in a section about health. Clanchy tries to include a compensatory compliment, but there are weird sexualising & classist undercurrents:
“When Kristell arrived in Year 9, she had a bosomy, curvy figure, with a tiny waist & pretty ankles… She had a soft, breathy voice to match the Bambi lashes & fresh mouth.” p237
Later
“She has put on a great deal of weight, so that the pretty figure is blurred… The dark eyes gazing out of the fat pink cheeks are still so very lovely.” p238-9
This “self-sabotage” was after being raped.

“Danielle really was special: she was exquisitely pretty in the dark & elfin, Audrey Hepburn mode. She knew it too; she was always finding occasion to take off her clothes & expose her pale, beautifully turned limbs.” p233
Later
“As if refusing middle-class food along with middle-class ambition, Danielle put on weight… her new bosom protruding ever more bulbously… I was surprised how hurt I was to see it. It wasn’t the flesh so much as the loss of grace.” p23
^^
“My eye was tuned in to the multi-racial London pupils I’d taught the year before, who had, by the same age, Somali height or Cypriot bosoms or styled stiff Japanese hair.” p8
Who talks about the breasts of a twelve-year old child like that, & why?!
^^
Anyway, Clanchy's new Scottish pupils, “winter-coloured, mouse-haired children”, were disconcertingly alike:
“I was having difficulty, as Prince Philip said he had with Chinese people, in telling them apart.”

[and the immediately above 2 posts indicate a running theme of exoticism/ Orientalism- the back handed compliment that being "foreign" is so much nicer than being drearily white British]

“Saira is very butch-looking altogether, with square shoulders & a distinct moustache.” p122

If a man had written any of that he'd have been torn to shreds on here.

Under this policy hardly any well loved older books would ever have been written surely?

I'm not as insightful or educated as many of you posting here but I am a reader and these days I am suspicious of and tend to avoid, certainly, fictional books written after approx 2018. The clumsy wedging in of a trans character into the otherwise wonderful "The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennet finished me off.

I am aware this book is non fiction and I will read it because I don't want to be controlled by what the social media mob decide is unacceptable for me to read. In fact after reading this thread and the background it's the first book I have looked forward to in ages. I speak as the mother of an autistic child who left mainstream education at age 8 due to the attitudes of, and his treatment at the hands of the teaching staff he encountered so I am sure the descriptions in this book around such children will piss me off. I would never let that prevent me from reading it though.

She had a soft, breathy voice to match the Bambi lashes & fresh mouth.” p237

Unless she's referring to dental hygiene what on earth is a "fresh mouth" anyway?

So you're cool with sexualising children and shaming raped girls? You don't think non-fiction books should ever be edited even if overtly racist or misogynistic?

I'm not "cool" with sexualising children or shaming rape victims, but that's not what this discussion is about. Do I think books should be edited? Sure. Also not what the discussion is about.

The book is only available in censored form now but the Good Reads review I linked to has quotes from the original text. They are indefensible.

They're not remotely indefensible. Anyone can defend them by saying (correctly) that the author can write whatever the fuck she likes, regardless of whether you, I, or anyone else finds it offensive. If you don't like it, no one's forcing you to read it.

This is a good piece on the whole controversy: unherd.com/2021/09/the-problem-with-white-saviours/ and there's also an interview with Clanchy here: unherd.com/thepost/kate-clanchy-my-lifes-work-has-been-taken-away/