So you write a novel--which is a feat in itself--and you try to get it published. Then you find that they won't publish it, unless you change its label to 'memoir.' Most people would go ahead & tack on that label at this point, especially when your publisher (Talese) is telling you it's all going to be all right.

Then you hit the motherload & end up in Oprah's book club.

Everyone but Jonathan Franzen knows that this is the best thing that can happen to a writer in our times, for no other reason than it will enable you to write another book, and to have an audience waiting for it. Which is, by the way, very rare.

The issue of James Frey's 'lying,' in my mind, is absolutely dwarfed by Oprah's need to put a stamp on everything, even something as subjective and life-affirming as literature. Who cares if he lied? If you love his book, you love his book. Since when has anything in print been the absolute truth, unaltered 'gospel'?

When and why has she become the authority on not only what we should read, but the way that we should think about writers? I can form my own opinion of James Frey without watching him be publicly sacrificed on the altar of her ego. She is not my moral compass, nor my intellectual compass, and I am surprised and disappointed that she is anyone else's.

So he doesn't think it's a big deal. But in my experience, many people who have weird boundary issues with their parents don't think it's a big deal. They think it's normal, b/c it's what they know. So if the LW tries to further protest that he shouldn't take nude photos of his mom, he probably won't get it.

But man. There are at least two people in this scenario who need a little therapy. And if he goes through with it, then LW might need some too. But I think the mom should go first.

I don't have kids. But if I did, I don't think I'd want them taking pictures of my coochie.

I just realized my dream of moving back to SF, and I love N. Beach. But guess what? I'm a female. And N. Beach of the old days never seems to be about that.

I realize that the essay is one guy's reminiscence, but why are the only women in his N. Beach either a) strippers, b) schizophrenics, c) the elusive nameless? I'm so bored with stories of men walking around, drinking/smoking, wishing they were other men.

When I walk around N. Beach, I feel the thrill that I'm part of something--but not of the old guard. I feel thrilled to forge something myself, instead of idolizing writers who weren't that great anyway (w/ a couple minor exceptions).

It's as expensive as hell to live here. But there's still creative energy...tons of it. Even if you're female & no one associates you w/ N. Beach. Or w/ writing. Maybe if I took my top off?

I am so bored w/ this stripping fad. Don't get me wrong: I'm of the school that anything a woman (or man) wants to do to feel sexy & good abt themselves is fine...but this fad just feels so banal.

I feel more sexy when I see the way my lover smiles sometimes when I speak, or when I look at his hands, or when I smell him, or when he does some incredible thing on his computer.

Why all this frantic, silly, (one-sided) effort? Subtlety is underrated. And it's very hot.

I just read an article that you can predict whose marriages will end: couples who have contempt for one another.

I think she's shown a lot of contempt, not just by having the affair, but by lying about it...repeatedly. She doesn't seem to want to be in the marriage, & she uses his anxiety problem against him. To me, she's showing a sort of passive contempt. She's out.

I agree w/ Cary; I think he should move on.

but even I'm bored now.

Stop talking about it. Just write.

This is obviously an incredibly complicated issue.

But I keep coming back to her personhood. Yes--she cannot speak for herself; she's not mentally advanced enough to be an advocate for her own health. But what of her individual humanity? If she was suddenly granted full, 'normal' intelligence--what would she think of the fact that a team of doctors (and her parents) had physically altered her, out of convenience?

I'm trying to put myself in her place. I know that's not the popular sentiment--it seems like most letter writers think we should put ourselves in the parents' place. But she is a Person. Why can't we let her live her measured life without surgically altering it to please our own persons?

but I agree w/ Cary. It's your space. Your choice. Your issue, as it were. If you're not comfortable, then don't give him the key.

I have a feeling, LW, that you're going to catch holy hell--particularly from men--for not handing him the key after seven years. But do what makes you happy; if your relationship works, it works. (See Frida Kahlo/Diego Rivera. It worked well when it worked.)