I Am a Piece of Shit
I received a manuscript yesterday from an editor looking for a blurb. It’s a book by a person with an eating disorder. It doesn’t look like anything I would ever read. I can’t do it. Until now, I’ve basically blurbed every book I’ve been asked to, which predictably have been books on writing and fat books. How can I say no? I was an editor for sixteen years. It’s hands down the worst part of the job, trawling for blurbs. You know what makes me insane, when a writer says that he or she has a “policy” of not giving out blurbs. A policy? What do they think they are? Statewide Insurance? Can’t you just say you don’t have the time or you don’t care? Do you really have to make a policy? And is it a policy if you make it up and enforce it yourself? Because I should have a policy of not weighing myself the morning after I eat pepperoni pizza.
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Jim had a breakfast club, a group of friends who met every Friday at a diner in Chelsea for the last nine years. Many were in attendance at the wake and funeral. It was just last Friday when Jim didn’t show up that the group suspected something might be wrong.
It’s funny, I can never seem to find my book in a single Barnes & Noble, but apparently the nation’s correctional facilities are stocked. I have received an inordinate amount of fan mail over the years from the inmates of America. The most memorable was from an inmate who said that his three favorite books of all time were: The Bible, A Clockwork Orange, and The Forest for the Trees. 
When I first thought of blogging, a couple of people close to me thought it was a bad idea given my “Impulse Control Problems.” I thought deeply about it and decided to take the plunge anyway. Today, I am ending this post in advance of saying some things I should not make public. And yes I want a mental health medal.
Media Alert: Tonight on the History Channel (9 P.M. EST) Linda Kasabian tells the story of the nine months leading up to the Manson murders. Kasabian stood guard outside Sharon Tate’s home while Manson and his followers committed mass murder. She became a witness for Vincent Bugliosi, the chief prosecutor in the case, and was granted immunity. It’s forty freakin’ years later. What the hell does she look like? And what can she possibly say? I’ve always wondered what Kasabian was thinking/doing as she waited in the car. Did she listen to the radio? Whistle?
I’m sure I was obsessed with the Manson murders in part because they happened on my birthday, August 9. It was 1969, the summer of Woodstock (I got a button with a guitar and a dove design), Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, and the Brady Bunch premiered. I was nine years old, wearing mix and match Danskins, glued to the tv.
Five years later, Bugliosi published his account of the murders and trial in Helter Skelter. This set off a feeding frenzy; I read The Godfather, Serpico, The Valachi Papers, and my favorite of all time, In Cold Blood. I’m not sure what attracted me, at fifteen, to these gruesome stories. I suspect it had something to do with trying to contemplate what I had decided was a godless world, where random violence rained down on innocent people. There was something sexual about it, too, though I didn’t know that then. Prurient and thrilling.These, too, were the first books I read that I could call page-turners. And that’s when I got hooked, in earnest, to reading.
Betsy Lerner 
