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listen if this Dan Mallory story had pub'd by the time I talked to Bustle for their WOC in Publishing article, I would have just sent them the link. it's more damning & illustrative of everything we talked about re: gatekeeping & privilege than a novel's worth of testimony.
this fedora-y Town & Country Billy McFarland knock-off didn't even have to be GOOD at lying to fail up from editorial asst to executive editor in 3 career moves. I know brilliant women who have been stuck at the same title while doing all of the work in the same amount of time.
it's worth watching how everyone in both Fyre documentaries AND this NYer piece spend so much time fawning over how impossibly charismatic & magnetic these pieces of carved potato are. I get it. no one likes to admit they got taken in by an obvious con.
I'd have probably been a mark too. part of the allure of the whole publishing gambit, for everyone from the Dan Mallorys to to the marginalized interns trying to break in, is the romance of playing a part in shaping what people talk about. it DOES get to be theater sometimes.
the difference is that Dan Mallory is winning awards by tricking Oxford elder statesmen into reacting to the most embarrassingly transparent humble bragging of all time by "respecting his forebearance." b/c Mallory is in a comfortable mold. that prof *still* (!!?) believes him.
that is WILD. this man has an NYer reporter at his door telling him the laundry list of validated lies his one-time protege has inflicted on the world, and he is still "astonished" that maybe this dude's dog/mom/brain all dying at once was fake. that's how strong the gate is.
b/c Dan Mallory represents this man's continued prestige & relevance in a way a woman or POC would not. believing those lies & still tacitly helping him succeed is a matter of survival for a certain kind of old guard. most women in publishing have a story about a Dan Mallory type
they will continue to do so while major UK publishing firms are still hiring based on "I like the cut of your jib, you can have a job" standards. while Dans can make 200k+ a year showing up to work half the time as their (likely) female assts do the actual work at 10% the salary.
and let's not forget that this takedown doesn't mean this guy's life is over. he's got his defenders. he's on his way to earning out on a 2 million dollar book deal. there's almost certainly a redemption narrative being crafted as we speak. he's working on a tv show.
show me the WOC thinking about breaking into this industry who would pick up his future memoir about how he "overcame" this whole "unfortunate" situation & think "yeah I want part of that." or the assts pushing to acquire who get told they're "not ready" as they read this mess.
thanks for snuffing out those careers before they begin, Dan! and all the legacy white men at Oxford and all your publishers who raised you up. what's it like to be a WOC in publishing? you never know if it's gonna be an oar or an axe or just another white dude coming for you.
(thanks for coming to my rant. my last addendum is that Sophie Hannah is the real hero of this profile for applying her fiction-learned practical skills to uncovering her scammer editor with an actual PI. I will be buying her books.)
