How long should someone nurse a slight or rejection?
In Barbara Walter's best-selling memoir Audition, which is reviewed today, the anchorwoman regurgitates wounds that are half a century old.
Walters, who will speak at the Free Library Central Branch's Philadelphia Book Festival at 5 p.m. Sunday, mentions repeatedly that she was wait-listed at Wellesley, her first choice.She's 78. She received an excellent education at Sarah Lawrence, a terrific college. She appears to have loved the place.
She lists bad treatment by colleagues that occurred in the 1960s.
The woman is a huge success. She has, as she lists in the book, thousands of friends.
Revenge fiction can be devilishly fun. Complaint memoirs are another matter.
Everyone has faced rejection. Well, maybe not Tom Brady or Angelina Jolie. But everyone, as REM notes, hurts.
At a certain point, a grownup ought to get over the stuff.
You can read the review here: http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20080515_Walters__career_a_continuing_audition.html
What is the point of this memoir, really? Barbara is (was) a respected journalist who, for a few bucks, sold out her lover and admitted to being an adulteress, a cheap trick to sell books that is beneath her. Never mind that her lover is now 80 years old and living a quiet life in peace. Never mind that she has now ruined his legacy such that, like Bill Clinton, you won't be able to think of Senator Brooks without remembering that he slept with Barbara Walters (an image no one wants in their mind). And never mind that stooping that low is unworthy of a credible journalist whose autobiography ought to be chock full of fascinating tales legitimately derived from her vast career. I really don't understand why no one is calling her on this...— geordigirl- Good point. There is something crass about going on Oprah and spilling the book's biggest revelation to sell books, though it's hardly relevant to her career only to gossip columns. It's working. Audition debuts as No. 1 on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list.— Karen Heller
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