Last week Vol 1. Brooklyn touched upon the concept of the “angry writer” with the inclusion of the infamous J.D. Salinger photo (at left), to which the good folks at deckfight responded:
that picture is awesome, b/c authors no longer get angry. everyone is looking coy & smart in their jacket photos. not since hunter thompson looked angry, yelling & shooting stuff. mailer looked angry sometimes, yelling & swinging his fists. maybe william vollman is now ticked off.
The photo at left was taken by two, in Salinger’s words, “shitty literary kids,” who essentially ambushed him for the sake of the photograph. “The wonder is that I have any kind of face at all left, grim or otherwise,” he said. “Piss on ’em all.”
There’s definitely a certain appeal about the “angry” writer. I don’t think I’m the only one intrigued with this idea; the Examiner recently put out a much talked about list of the best “author vs author put-downs of all time.” Maybe the “angry writer” appeals to us because in an oblique way the idea reminds me of some of the literary greats–yes, Salinger, and also Hemingway and Vonnegut and Twain, among others–writers who generally didn’t give a damn about what people thought of them and weren’t preoccupied with their sales ranking in The New York Times Book Review. If only we could be so free.
Times have changed, I guess, and like deckfight said, no one really gets angry anymore. But I still get a kick whenever authors “let loose” and refuse to censor themselves. Accordingly, I’ve put together a few of my favorite “angry writer” quotes. Hope you enjoy: Read more »
This is your brain on books.
