News began circulating last week that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution was eliminating the position of book editor and quite possibly its entire book review section. Coming close on the heels of the recent revamping of the LA Times book section is especially troubling. That’s 2 of our country’s top newspapers, which serve 2 of our most literate cities, reducing (or potentially eliminating) their book coverage significantly. Not a good sign.
To combat this trend The National Book Critics Circle began circulating a petition to “Help Protect Atlanta’s Book Review.”
In a show of solidarity Scott McLemee over at the blog Quick Study published a post regarding the petition.
Now the fun begins-
Timothy Patrick Barrus leaves a wrathful comment to the post at Quick Study that begins like this:
“I applaud the elimination of the book critic period. They are not journalists. They are reactionaries. They never bother to fact-check and they spew venom beyond the context of opinion. The ones on blogs are the worst.”
Who is Timothy Patrick Barrus? He is a writer of gay erotica who decided to adopt the name “Nasdijj” and write memoirs of the Navaho experience. The three books he wrote under his assumed name were:
The Blood Runs Like A River Through My Dreams (2000)
The Boy ans the Dog Are Sleeping” (2003)
Geronimo’s Bones: A Memoir of My Brother and Me (2004)
All three complete fabrications.
LA Weekly’s Matthew Fleischer busted Barrus in his January 2006 article “Navahoax” and the rest they say is history. Sherman Alexie” accused Nasdijj of both manufacturing his identity and plagiarism” and refused to provide a blurb for one of his books. Why the book was still published is a story for another day.
J. Peder Zane, the book review editor of the News & Observer wrote a piece about being duped by Burrus. In it is this:
“The rage that had simmered and shimmered just below the surface of his prose erupted in long and frequent Internet rants, in violently crude language, decrying the “racism” of publishing.”As his rage mounted — and he began illustrating it on his Web site with pornographic images — I feared he had lost control.”
Somethings never change.
Thanks to Maud Newton for the lead