Five Questions with Literary Critic Bethanne Patrick

We talk about her podcast, new book and more

Bethanne Patrick is a professional Book Person. She reviews books for the L.A. Times and her own book, Life B, comes out next spring. She recently covered the antitrust trial brought by the federal government to block the proposed Penguin Random House/Simon & Schuster merger — and live-tweeted the experience.

The same week she was in the courthouse, her new podcast, Missing Pages, launched. Missing Pages is a true crime podcast — without murder — for book nerds. Each episode examines a literary “scandal,”  such as the rise and fall of author Dan Mallory, the author who lied his way to top jobs at editorial houses and a multi-million dollar book deal. Fans of Normal Gossip, those looking to better understanding the often opaque publishing industry and anyone who likes a good story will want to check this out.

Bethanne was kind enough to talk with me about Missing Pages, her upcoming book, the trial and more. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Tell us a little bit about how Missing Pages came together.

Missing Pages has been amazing. It’s also been a long road. We’ve been working on this first season for almost a year. That’s not because all podcasts take a year or because our next season will take that, but because we took our time to think about what we wanted to the podcast to be. Do we want it to be just a gossip show or do we want to go a little deeper?

I think people are finding the more gossipy aspect of it fun, so I don’t want to say it’s not gossipy, but also we’re trying to understand how the publishing industry was culpable for these scandals [not just individuals]. Sometimes, we point a finger at a person saying they did a bad thing, but their actions were supported by certain practices or factions in the publishing industry.

For example, the Dan Mallory episode focuses on an author who had a bestseller, but had told a lot of lies to get himself up to a very high position in the publishing industry.

There’s no doubt that Dan Mallory is extremely handsome and very charming. He’s a polished person, but he told a lot of lies about his education that helped him get positions as editor and executive editor at different publishing companies. I think it’s too easy in our society for someone who is an attractive white male to say I have a PhD from Oxford and for everyone to believe it.

Can you preview any future episodes?

One of the things I can preview for you is that we have a two-parter on the Instagram-famous Caroline Calloway. She was a big it girl and she is well known for having pitched and gotten a book deal for a memoir that she never wrote. When people find out the rest of the story and see how she paid back the advance [she was paid for her memoir] … it’s a little dishy.

We also have a story I’m personally involved in about Anna March, who scammed people in the literary and writing community. She made up things about retreats, workshops and awards.

What can you share about your upcoming book?

My book is Life B: Overcoming Double Depression. It's a memoir and completely different from anything else I do.

It’s about my lifelong struggle with depression and how getting a proper diagnosis and treatment only six years ago changed things for me. I have this amazing good fortune and privilege of having come through a long period of illness and now I can say if I am not healthy, I’m at least on the road to health. It’s a lot about the heredity of mental illness and how I wanted to make sure that our two daughters grow up without the same inheritance.

I’ll add — and I don’t know if anyone else will say this — but my agent said she thinks it’s somewhat of a feminist manifesto. That just makes me so happy.

What was it like to attend and live-tweet the merger trial?

I’ve been on Twitter for such a long time and I’ve live-tweeted awards ceremonies, but this was pretty intense because I was doing it for Publishers Weekly. I came in when the government was making its arguments [against the merger], then they closed the case and the defense began. I was mostly covering the defense bringing in its witnesses.

I was going to a federal courthouse for the first time in my life. I had never had the occasion before and I hope I never have occasion to do that again, unless it’s for a very good reason.

It was crazy to see all of these agents and editors wandering around this professional but not swanky courthouse. The energy was pretty high.

It was amazing to be hearing about all of these publishing practices. I thought ‘this is almost impossible. You can’t explain publishing in a legal setting.’ There are so many practices that no one has ever tried to make formal. There were so many times we were like, ‘Oh, wow, this cannot be explained.’

To go full circle, it sounds like you’re trying to explain some of that with your podcast.

I think that we need to start getting some things late laid out on the table so that we can change publishing. It's not that I'm saying publishing is terrible —I work in it, or around it or near it.

I love book publishing. I love books. I love the kinds of people who go into publishing — smart and curious and intellectual — but if we want to make things more equitable, we have to be able to change things and we can't change things if we can't talk about them.

Last question: Any books you want to recommend?

An author I really love is Grant Ginder, and he writes comic novels. His latest is called Let’s Not Do That Again. It’s terrific. It’s about a woman named Nancy, she’s a senator who has taken over her deceased husband’s seat. Part of the book is a murder mystery, part of the book is a D.C. story about elections and politics and part of the book is a very interesting foray into what French right-wing movements mean for global politics. Yet, it’s so funny, you won’t be able to put it down.

Another one I’m talking about in a huge way is Rebecca Donner’s All the Frequent Trouble of Our Days. It has won every award and gotten so many rave reviews. It’s about Rebecca’s great-aunt Mildred Harnack, who was the only American woman who worked in the German resistance during World War II. She was executed in 1943 on the direct order of Hitler. The way Donner tells the story is through archival memoir. I don’t know how to describe it but it’s a beautiful, important book.   

Now, I’ll give you the big sort of meaty novel. This year my pick is The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers. Jeffers is incredible poet. This is her first novel, it’s huge, and it’s a telling of U.S. history from the perspective of red, brown, Black and mixed-race people. You will never look at our country the same way after you read this beautiful, irresistible book. It's a book only a poet could have written and yet it is very much a novel. One that you'll be sunk in – you won't be able to lift your head from the pages.

Thanks again to Bethanne for talking with me. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram, and pre-order her book.

Reminder: Next week’s recs will come out on Tuesday AND Bingo cards are due next week.

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