For the Record … (In Re: Caitlin Flanagan)
Posted on 17. Mar, 2010 by Brian Reid in Uncategorized
Once upon a time, I took up a good amount of this blog with posts about Caitlin Flanagan, a talented writer with a disturbing and dangerous lack of perspective on how families worked in the real world. She penned provocative pieces, got a gig at the New Yorker and published a book of her perspective-lacking musings. And then she disappeared.
But in the spirit of keeping your enemies close, I want to note (belatedly) that she popped up earlier this year with a bizarre anti-school-garden rant in the Atlantic. For the record, her Atlantic bio says she’s still working on her book on prepubescent girls. So we’re not out of the woods yet.
Nathan
18. Mar, 2010
That is a bizarre story. I always thought people gave her too hard a time. She made some good points, wrote well about her family and was an incredible writer (perhaps the only one whose name on a piece got me to read it).
Of course, I never saw the goofy interviews or comments. Still, she was just not ready to take the weight of hatred that came down upon her. I saw this as a dad on paternity leave for the second time too, as a dad who essentially moved to Sweden to be around my kids more.
But that school garden piece! What trash. And poorly written. Almost makes me worried that she has cracked …
Rocky
31. Mar, 2010
I’m new to your blog, and I only know Flanigan from the Atlantica piece. I was surprised by that piece. I liked it. It made me squirmy, but I liked it.