The Way We Were, Part II

Graydon Carter writing his memoir, but...
Memories blight the corners of his mind
Nasty, dirty-colored memories of the way he wasAs I was saying…the third thing that happened to keep me keeping on with The Nob was that I read that Graydon Carter, former editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair, was living quite comfortably in the South of France working on his memoir. Well, of course he is. Graydon Carter is exactly the kind of person people expect to write memoir. With a career spent cavorting with the rich and celebrated, he can fill his pages with tons of behind the scenes gossip and rumors from his precious annual Oscar night party. This is quite a distinction from JD Vance who became famous as a result of his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy.  I’m quite sensitive to this distinction. The Nobby Works actually got its start when a dear friend suggested over lunch one day that I write a memoir based on all the stories she had kindly listened to me tell over the years. The idea was intimidating to me though because like nearly anyone else I would have to ask: What have I done in my life to merit a memoir? As happened, The Nobby Works emerged as a sort of blog/memoir hybrid, punctuated as it is with many stories from my life. The blog provides the opportunity to enliven and enlighten those stories with graphics, video clips, music, and links. All that, however, comes at the expense of a life narrative, which should be the goal of a good memoir. In the blog post I wrote about the late Donnie Perkins, my former high school student, I referenced a course called Who Am I? that I taught Donnie and many other students at Lebanon High School in Lebanon New Hampshire. I described the course this way:

Ostensibly designed as a study of biography and autobiography, it developed in time as quite a therapeutic exercise for me if not for the students themselves. For their final, term-length paper, they had to submit their own autobiographies. I promised (and delivered) more privacy than Facebook allows, and for that was rewarded with student writing that I’d venture to say was unmatched at any public or private school in the country for conveying the unvarnished truth of teenage life. The dreams and disappointments that comprised those autobiographies made it nearly impossible for me ever to look upon any classroom as “standard.” The idea that there could be a standard test to measure the achievement or potential of all the complex individuals that make up a classroom was as absurd then as it is now.

Those were in fact teenage memoirs…and given the toll adulthood takes on self-reflection, I’m guessing that for many of those kids it was the last honest writing they did in their lives. That toll can be measured in this excerpt from a David Marchese interview with Graydon Carter concerning Vanity Fair’s profile of wealthy, celebrated pedophile Jeffrey Epstein: Marchese: So I have to ask you about the situation with Vicky Ward and the Jeffrey Epstein profile she wrote for Vanity Fair. She’s saying that she had credible sources claiming sexual misconduct on the part of Jeffrey Epstein, that she had originally included those allegations in the profile, and that you had them removed. You’ve said that Ward did not have three on the record sources and that what she did have did not meet Vanity Fair’s legal standards, therefore the allegations were cut. [Editor’s note: Ward says she did have three on-the-record sources – a mother and her two daughters – at the time. The Guardian has since contacted the mother,  who confirmed the three spoke to Ward in 2003, on the record. ] But I’m having a hard time understanding why one credible account of sexual misconduct wouldn’t have been enough to warrant inclusion or at least make you reconsider the profile?  Carter:  This is 20 years ago. I’m not going to get into the details, because I don’t even remember the details. The fact is that editors make tough decisions every day, and at Vanity Fair we had an army of fact checkers and lawyers and other editors to help us make the right ones. It’s easy for people to question those decisions 20 years on.Marchese: But what I was asking about was this apparent in-house rule about needing to have three on-the-record sources. Can you explain the rationale behind that and how it was applied in this instance?  Carter:  We wanted people to go on the record. Whoever Vicky Ward talked to, they were unavailable to us. At the time this was the first or second major profile of Jeffrey Epstein. He was still a private citizen, and the libel bar is much higher on a private citizen than a public figure. We had great lawyers and a great fact-checking team and a great legal editor, and the accusations didn’t make it into print.Marchese: Doesn’t the practice of requiring multiple on-the-record corroborating sources advantage somebody like Epstein in a situation like the one that’s being cited? He only has to say “no” but the accusers have to —  Carter : I didn’t invent the system. I just lived by the system.Marchese: Did the existence of even one seemingly credible accusation of sexual misconduct against Epstein make you consider further pursuing that aspect of the story?  Carter : I don’t think we saw any details. I don’t think the facts were presented in a way that would have made it into print.Marchese: You’re telling me that neither wheel-greasing nor making editorial decisions based on personal considerations regarding subjects ever occurred at Vanity Fair?  Carter : I can’t remember a single one.
"It’s easy for people to question those decisions 20 years on"--passage of time defense"The accusations didn’t make it into print"--passive voice defense"I didn’t invent the system" --following orders defense"I can’t remember a single one"--the faulty memory defense
I hate to damn a book before I’ve even read it, but if that is a sample of the evasive, manipulative bullshit Graydon Carter is going to spin in his memoir, I’ll pass on it…even if I get it as a gift from a daughter. I believe everyone has a story worth telling. Some people, like JD Vance use memoir to reveal their story; others--like Graydon Carter I'll presume--will use it to conceal their story.  
Excuse me now. I have a memoir to write.