Nom D' Plume

The New York Times magazine’s style sections, which have lately been spun out as stand-alone quarterlies or something like that, have–to my eye–been kind of a mess. If you look to the table of contents, they are typically divided into broad, allegedly cute rubrics like “The Look,” “The Get,” and so on. But if you actually browse through, my eye like a cabbage moth doesn’t really land on anything in particular, other than what most dominates these issues–the full-bleed, full-truck prestige ads.

That undoubtedly pleases the advertisers. In many ways that’s precisely what a good style magazine should do–become a self-fueled showcase for prestige brands to compete with each other for the most glam, buzz-worthy ad pages.

But as far as “T” being an editorial product, there are just too many elements thrown together without any useful overarching architecture. Normally, I argue the opposite point– many publications, especially the alt-weeklies, suffer from too much off-putting structure designed to lead the reader by the nose-ring. I’m talking about impedimenta like over-defined sections (Music! Film! Books! Readings! Visual Art-Sculpture! Visual Art-Sculpture-Smaller Than Your House!), oversized page numbers, heads, decks, tags, bylines, captions, pullquotes, refers, blah blah blah. Is there a story in there somewhere?

But “T” magazine kind of abandons the images and the stories to the page. Where everything is given equal visual weight, nothing stands out or calls you in. You could make the argument that that’s what catalogs do, and that’s what Times Style editors are trying to recreate–a sort of shopper or browser. It’s irritating to me that such a lazy approach to magazine design–which is itself supposed to showcase world-class design–can succeed so handsomely.

Anyway, my point was going to be that one story in “T” recently jumped out at me, to be the exception that proves the rule. I didn’t notice it myself; my beautiful and brilliant wife did. It was a wonderful, evocative piece about visiting Euro-Disney. It was written by the “mysterious” young San Francisco writer J.T. Leroy, and I thought that was pretty savvy of the Times to pick up LeRoy, who has most recently been writing regularly for the SF magazine 7X7. LeRoy, you may remember, is supposedly a twenty-something young man who was raised on the mean streets of America. According to the story, he was sort of a Gen-Y Jim Carroll–a comparison that stands up, when you read the two well-liked novels LeRoy has published.

Well, today, someone over at Women’s Wear Daily reports that the Times Magazine has suddenly decided to end its nascent relationship with LeRoy. They cancelled an assignment in progress (a piece about Deadwood, the HBO series). The reason given seems to be that the Times cannot verify that LeRoy “is a real person,” and WWD sort of fans the flames of consipracy by talking to “someone claiming to be LeRoy” who confirms the facts of the dust-up.

I don’t know what all the fuss is about. In the business, it’s called a pseudonym, and the fact that J.T. LeRoy has been writing and publishing under that name for more than a decade ought to be track record enough to establish his (or her) credentials. Probably the Times would like to know what LeRoy’s real name is–and LeRoy isn’t taking the bait. Probably the Times is being careful to avoid any more embarrassments. Probably that is worrying too much about the writer, and not enough about the writing– something the Times has raised to the level of corporate art form.

Funny WWD uses the word “scrapped.” As in, “editors at the Times Magazine recently scrapped a piece by author J.T. LeRoy.” I’ve heard from more than one writer over the years that the Times frequently operates without conscience when it comes to “scrapping” stories that they have assigned. Another convention of the business, even more common than the pseudonym, is that you honor the contracts you make with writers, and you either buy the story and burnish it to your liking, or you kill it. In a pinch, you can accept a story “on spec”–without committment. In all cases, a writer deserves to know what he’s in for before he’s in it, or after it’s over, or somewhere along the way. Times editors, frequently citing that wonderful, all-encompasssing excuse that “it’s a big operation, we’re real busy” are not good about this important but unprestigious nuts-and-bolts facet of the biz. The lives of Times editors do not come to a grinding halt when a story doesn’t work out; but the lives of freelance writers frequently do.

UPDATE: A friend pointed me to the New York magazine piece (referenced in the WWD story) that purports to identify who the real J.T. LeRoy is. It’s an interesting mystery, but seems to me sort of irrelevant to whether the work written by that person is publishable or not. LeRoy has been writing and publishing in almost every magazine other than the Times for many years now. Clearly the New York mag story made Times editors nervous. Or should I say even more nervous.