Times Interview with Kate Clanchy - shared article in post

[NorthSouthEast]

This is a sobering, thoughtful, harrowing, blood-boiling read. What Kate Clanchy went through 😡. I’ve put this in FWR as it’s yet another story of a woman being cancelled on the basis of rumour, supposition and hearsay with self-righteous people scrambling to jump on the “be kind” wagon as it rolls another human being and their career into the mud.

Kate Clanchy: I was cancelled. It made me contemplate suicide

www.thetimes.com/article/7681d5ec-3773-4b36-ab95-e4ab409d7899?shareToken=e76def471fd13ded750d7295fd554675

Aha! And she blocked me years ago on X.

Omigod, it’s just popped up on my X feed. JFC, what an excruciating thing for a grown woman to do. Dear oh lord. That’s the worst fake crying I’ve ever seen.

I read extracts from Clanchy's book more than four years ago and was shocked and disturbed. Later, after the online fuss, I read the book; it was an unpleasant experience, a glimpse into an exploitative and dehumanising mindset I would rather not have been exposed to. I do not choose to read anything else she has written (reading that Times article was a mistake).

Her use of children to peddle herself makes it worse not better.

My opinion, one that I am entitled to hold.

Pubishers should stand by their authors. At the very least, they should defend freedom of speech and expression.

The SoA should fold. A net bad thing for writers, and since they widened their entry requirements to absolutely anyone, an utterly pointless organisation.

What authors should do is a far more complex question.

Social media has turned the dynamics on their heads.

Authors are expected and encouraged to 'engage' with readers, but not ever respond to anything critical.

It can in some cases mean expecting a writer to become a public punchbag, with no right of reply, and for fuck all in the way of compensation. Authors/writers mostly live a very precarious existence, and many if not most have a day job or supplementary work. (Unless already loaded/privileged, but that's a whole other discussion).

I don't know what the solution is.

Rachel Rooney has posted a screenshot of some of the vile tweets that were posted about her at the time. I noticed the children's author Sophie Anderson joining in with the pile on. I won't be buying my dds any more of her books.

Why would an author need to respond to negative reviews? Should they not just cope? It's not the reader's fault if the author has to have another job.

Ultimately, it's hard to make money as a writer and people don't have to enjoy their output, authors have to stop being so precious. I've got a list of writers in my head whose books I totally despised and even felt insulted by wasting my time on reading them, all got 1 star ratings on goodreads and I, along with other readers, am entitled to do and think that.

Any critics should definitely read the whole thing. It’s one of the best books about teaching I’ve ever read. (I am a teacher, no longer in the job).

She helped those children to find their own poet’s voice - about their memories, feelings, lost languages, homes left behind. Usually there isn’t time or space in schools to do the kind of work that she did with those students. It’s all about getting those GCSEs, moving along the factory conveyor belt on to the next stage, and then on to becoming a productive economic unit. There’s no time to find your own voice or express yourself in a way that doesn’t fit into the curriculum and get you a higher grade. Clanchy moved far away from that. She also made it clear how much she learned from the young people she worked with. That’s true teaching, not just the one-way transmission of knowledge or skills from tutor to student that most non-educators think that teaching is all about.

As I said, authors are constantly encouraged to engage and respond to readers.

But when they get a bad review, or skewered, or insulted, or lies spread about them, they must instantly shut up. It's a frankly weird expectation.

'Should they not just cope'

What is it that makes an author impervious to getting upset, do you think?

I'm glad to see Janice Turner mentioned Baroness Nicholson in. her article. Her treatment by the Booker and various authors, yes I'm looking at you Damian Barr, was one of the worst things I've ever seen. Designed to hurt, cruel, unforgivable.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for witch burners. And if you're comparing a woman whose book you don't like to Jimmy bloody Savile you're the problem.

Just wondering. Are you one of the three? Your immediate stance on here was hostile, whilst clearly knowing the background. Personally I would normally take the view as a white poster (as ethnicity/colour seems to be impt) that if students from different ethnicities to mine describe themselves in terms, then the very minimum i can do is accept for those individuals their specific terms. As that doesn't affect others. If it did then I would have more of an issue. The author in this case is not applying almond eyes or chocolate skin to other indivs from that ethnicity. Using the students own terms. I work with a lot of Europeans who have their own phrases. I am not a white saviour if I use their phrasing. I do have my own exception to my own rule: I will never use N**r, despite that word being reclaimed by some members of the community where it was and is used as a slur. Sorry just can't do that.

But when they get a bad review, or skewered, or insulted, or lies spread about them, they must instantly shut up. It's a frankly weird expectation.

I agree, though there was that curious case when Orlando Figes wrote bad reviews on Amazon about fellow historians Robert Service and Rachel Polonsky’s books and also praised his own books.
I’m not sure how he was rumbled, but I guess he wasn’t very tech savvy and left clues.
He must have felt a complete and utter idiot when his actions were uncovered.

An author can get as upset as they want - in private. They don't get to hound someone who didn't like their book and try to get them sacked. That sort of writer would be a massive liability to a publishing house imo. I'm certainly not saying the other bullies should have piled in because they definitely shouldn't but Clanchy's behaviour was horrendous and I really don't understand why she's being defended as a free speech issue.

No, I am not one of the three. Which means there are at least four of us who dislike Clanchy's way of writing about people

I would be outraged at having an English person using my 'phrasing' back at me, as though I was an animal who could not understand their human speech, and needed to be described in special terms. Dehumanising starts right there.

But there seems to be no evidence that any of that happened. It seems likely to be part of the witch hunt against Kate Clanchy.

Clanchy didn't know the reviewer's real life identity, so how would she have been able to get them sacked?

So according to you it's a horror to say someone has a Jewish looking nose because Nazis murdered Jews or anyone they decided was one.
Yes what the Nazis did was horrific.

But Clanchy isn't a Nazi. She didn't write this in the 1940s. There's nothing wrong with looking Jewish!

You seem to be projecting your own negative school experiences or unpleasant personal encounters with other people onto Clanchy.
According to you no white woman can ever help anyone else because they only do it for their own glory.

That's called prejudice and I think you are prejudiced.

Well, there's the thing. It's that odd idea that writers/authors are not like other people.

Possibly back in the day, pre social media, when reviewers wrote in papers etc, silence in the face of excoriating reviews was a logical convention. But social media has long since levelled that pretend hierarchy, and collapsed the distinctions and boundaries.

Obviously, it looks more dignified not to respond to reviews. But the idea that responding as a human being is so outrageous an author deserves to be absolutely annihilated for doing so is downright weird.

Hmm there are some things about that article I find disturbing.

The contempt for ‘amateur reviewers’. (Are only those paid by mainstream media to be relied on? Some sort of certificate of social acceptability?)

KC’s description of herself as ‘some poor random woman’ (authors and their works are fair targets for criticism).

The framing of the criticism of her as psychologically generated rather than political.

The lack of any detail abour the criticisms (whether fair or not) made by the ‘sensitivity readers’.

The emphasis that the people who attacked her were ‘women around my own age’. (Menopausal? Hysterical? Vicious? What’s going on here?)

The repeated use of the name ‘Brenda’ (which to me has unpleasant overtones relating to race, age & class) as a pseudonym for one of her critics.

The lack of any discussion about the criticism levied at her descriptions of children’s weight, & relating to privacy issues.

I have not read the book. Frankly I think it sounds ghastly - a tedious exercise in platitudinous self congratulatory middle class navel gazing. Not for me at all.

I also deplore the rush to ‘cancel’ authors of whom society disapproves - by making them unprintable & unable to work. KC should not have found herself in that position.

But I think we do need to be aware - while deploring ‘cancellation’ - of an unpleasant move in right wing media to make it impossible to criticise any writing that reflects disturbing assumptions & stereotypes abour race & class. That reduces that criticism to hysteria, or spite, or to being ‘bats’ or ‘bonkers’. And it’s that that I caught a whiff of in this article.

No industry should be taken over by ideologues. Publishing seems to be full of them, Joanne Harris as Chair of the Society of Authors seemed to make it a highly unpleasant and hostile union for gender critical members much in the same way as all the other unions and political parties have been taken over by activists.

Don't capitulate to online bullies, don't allow yourselves to be taken over by activists, value freedom of speech and expression. Remember that offence taken isn't necessarily given. In a future scenario ride out the storm.

Authors obviously need to have a plan B for when they are cancelled. Clanchy took in lodgers. Gillian Philip the cancelled GC author became a lorry driver. Rachel Rooney the cancelled GC poet became a carer for special needs children. They're still trying to cancel JK Rowling and it will never happen but every other writer living and dead has a target on their back.

Karma is a great thing cry bullies.

Criticism is necessary and healthy.

Vicious attacks, not so much.

I look forward to the BBC four part thing. Maybe it will shed more light. Having said that, I hope they're not editing clips ...

The repeated use of the name ‘Brenda’ (which to me has unpleasant overtones relating to race, age & class) as a pseudonym for one of her critics
@JeminaTheGiantBear
What are race, age and class overtones of Brenda? It’s a pretty unusual name, isn’t it?
Was sort of name should have been used for a pseudonym?
Do you think Kate Clanchy should have given Brenda’s real name?

It's quite scary, really. Accusations need have no basis, no evidence is required. The witch hunters have chosen their prey, and anything is acceptable. Of course, witch hunters have always considered themselves the righteous, and therefore anything they do is righteous, no matter how cruel.

More thoughts from me:

• It may be "safer" for authors to refrain from responding to comments online. But the fact is that it is not exactly against the law for them to do so. And they may reasonably set out with good intentions -- to explain themselves, correct a misunderstanding, stand up for their reputation, say, if they're accused of something serious such as racism. And if it does happen (i.e. the author speaks out), I don't agree that it's fair to "blame" the author for "starting it", or for "bringing it on themselves." Authors have as much right to speak as anyone else.

• The publisher should stand up for the book, and their priority should be to stand by the author and look after the author's welfare. As we have seen, these situations are extraordinarily stressful, and more than one author has mentioned seriously considering ending their lives because of it. This is my real concern, and i feel we all have a duty to make sure authors or other people who find themselves at the centre of a controversy do not reach that point. The 2021 situation was shameful for the whole industry, and I believe it became dangerous for the people at the centre of the furore. If we're not careful, the next fractious disagreement could have an even worse outcome.

• People who have a problem with a book have the right to state their opinion - fine. However, I'm not convinced they have the right to insist on a particular outcome. (E.g. to push for an apology; and then a better apology; and then to push then for the author to stop speaking/posting/appearing in public; and then for the publisher to withdraw the book; and then for the publisher to make a statement; and then for all the author's associates to distance themselves from him/her.) I think: make your criticism once in a civil fashion, and then move on. (NB: a criticism could also be made by means of a letter to the publisher. It doesn't have to be a public Goodreads or social media post.)

Saville was a sadist, who deliberately, carefully, and very, very purposefully set out to gain acess to children and cause them harm, pain, and terror because he enjoyed that. In no way shape or form was what he did equivalent to a well-meaning but misguided, navel gazing, self-righteous white saviour complex.
I think this (imo frenzied) attack is a really clear demonstration of why purity circles are bad for women and children, society wide. We demand ever purer behaviour from women, to the point where well-meaning but misguided behaviour from a wealthy, priviledged woman can actually be equated to deliberate sadism on the part of a (wealthy, priviledged) man.

All this does is whitewash Saville's behaviour, and men like him. People start to think, hey, maybe he was just well meaning but misguided.