Is anyone else getting "All About Eve" vibes from this story?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie apparently helped two writers who went on to insult her online (her full essay is here).
And what particularly ratchets the whole thing up is that one of these writers apparently, and without asking or even telling her, used her name for publicity purposes for her own book (if her publishers dunnit, she could have said no, no?), while attacking her via social media.
Apart from the citation to All About Eve, I was reminded of this review of Terry Castle's review of A Likely Story: One Summer with Lillian Hellman by Rosemary Mahoney: When a famous and idealised older woman fails to live up to the needs of a younger protégée it is de rigueur nowadays for the latter to rage in print at the cruelty of her faithless idol.
I cannot help thinking of the whole 'generations of feminists dissing on their forebears' thing. Is it really All About Mummy, somehow?
On the, I Will Be Utterly Poisonous To You And Insult You But Nevertheless Expect To Use Your Connections, Plz Do Me A Favour thing, which may just be some people are, really, just that obtuse, I am sure I have seen comparable things on e.g. AITA, there was that experience I had with the Nightmare Person on the academic discussion list I was running (and whom I had eventually kicked off) who after insulting me to my face (and I daresay behind my back) got in touch to ask me to be a reference for them for a job. As If. Even had I been willing, only by lying through my teeth could I have made this person out to be anyone anyone would want anywhere near their workplace.
(I don't think the person who used my cred as much more senior person with track record in field to score a special journal edition by asking me to be co-editor, and then essentially ghosted me, is quite in the same league, but I am never going to do a project/be on a panel/whatever with them again.)
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