Russell Smith takes on Stephenie Meyer
Russell Smith weighs in on the Stephenie Meyer Midnight Sun affair – in which an early draft of her next novel was leaked online, causing her to freak out and threaten to abandon the project – in his Globe and Mail column. Smith is unsympathetic: he calls Meyer’s agitation “a kind of millionaire Mormon temper tantrum, I guess, or fit of hypersensitivity.” Frankly, though, it’s hard to imagine any author, including Smith, being happy about a raw draft being made public before they’ve had a chance to improve it.
Most amusing is Smith’s conclusion that it’s all a ruse.
It’s hard, in an age where such events often turn out to be elaborately planned publicity gimmicks, not to be slightly suspicious of the whole thing. Meyer’s books generally attract media attention not because of their literary brilliance but because of some sort of controversy like this.
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It’s hugely empowering for publishers, however, when things like this blow up. Would I be writing about Stephenie Meyer for any other reason?
He appears to be serious, folks. Yep, just imagine the urgent meeting in a shadowy Little, Brown boardroom: “OK, Stephenie is the top-selling author in the country right now, her books are blockbusters, the Twilight movie is coming out this year, we’ve gotten the cover of Entertainment Weekly…. but the missing piece of the puzzle is the attention of Russell Smith! How can we make this happen?”
(Incidentally, Meyer ended up posting that partial draft on her own site, though she hasn’t said whether she’ll go back to the project.)
I don’t want to get too technical, but you have to put this into the context of, er, the fact that Russell Smith never knows what he’s blathering on about — unless it’s shoes and fashion trends. You go, boy!
Russell hasn’t done one of his purple-collar-shirts-are-colourful columns in quite some time. What gives?
Russell’s inane viewpoints don’t really deserve to be bolstered by wasting media space on critiquing him, but the can of whoop-ass Mr. Weiler just unleashed made my rather uneventful day. And who could resist responding to such claptrap anyway? What is wrong with the Globe and Mail?
What a ridulous article and let’s hope all the TWILIGHT FANS DON’T GET TO READ THIS ! Stephenie has EVERY RIGHT TO REACT IT’S HER STORY and her life’s work something you don’t know about !
yes ridiculous !
I don’t care if this is a well thought out marketing plan or not. I just want her to finish the book! You should not punish your fans because of one person! Get over it and get on with the book, PLEASE !!!!
Sounds like a perfectly plausible theory to me. For heaven’s sake, Mr. Smith was not talking about his own attention to the story as a motive but rather the media’s attention. Grow up.