The Contemporary Nomad is where five authors talk with you, dear reader, about the important subjects of the day. Whatever we decide they might be. Read more 
N A D L E R
The allegation surrounding blockbuster writer Michael Crichton has long been a fantasy of mine. In the wake of a cutting review or personal snub, I pondered how much fun it would be to deliver vengeance by writing a novel, inserting in it the most disreputable, warped, ugly, and sexually inept character imaginable, and naming it after my nemesis. The possibilities were endless: that thoughtful Bosnian Serb critic who called me childish in a review could appear in a future tome as an Albanian hermaphrodite with hallatosis and a limp; that sarcastic journalistic colleague infinitely more thorough than I could be portrayed as a bumbling hack on the celebrity beat … with hallatosis and limp. (To any Nomad readers with hallatosis and a limp, no offense.)
But now according to the NYT I may not be the only writer in the world to have harbored such childish fantasies. U.S. journalist Michael Crowley’s allegation that a minor character in the recently released blockbuster Next focuses this allegation at none other than the book’s author Michael Crichton. I was instantly skeptical at Crowley’s assertion until of course I read a quote of the suspected passage in the NYT. Hit the above link, and you can read it for yourself, but the character, inserted briefly like a raised middle finger, is a Washington journalist named Mick Crowley who has a “small penis” and is on trial for having used it to rape an infant.
Accusing the Crowley character of having a tiny member can be interpreted as more than a school-yard insult. It is apparently a defense against being outed by the defamed targets of such literary guerrilla attacks. The thinking: who in the world is going to make a fuss and say that the Crichton character with a small penis is me?
Crowley has made such a claim, alleging Crichton is seeking revenge after the journalist published an article criticizing the erudite thriller author of using his bot boilers as a bully pulpit to further controversial scientific ideas. (Crichton’s last bestseller State of Fear argued that global warming was poppy cock, the invention of wrong-headed scientists and hysterically insidious environmental activists: nasties like Al Gore, and all those Nazis at Green Peace.) OK, Crowley let Crichton have it, writing: “And now, like a mighty t rex that has escaped from Jurassic Park, Crichton stomps across the public policy landscape, finally claiming the influence that he has always sought.”
If Crichton did indeed harpoon Crowley in his writing, he’s not the first novelist to do so. If you are one of those that believe William Shakespeare was actually the 17th Earl of Oxford, then the Hamletian villain Polonius was in fact a cutting and damning portrait his father-in-law William Cecil. Playwright and author Hanif Kureishi admitted to naming insatiable lesbian lovers in a movie after two aunts who criticized his writing as depraved. And on and on.
But Michael come on! Don’t you realize that media criticism is the insignificant price paid for being a famous author, and that the best revenge is living well. If I were you, I would have invented the following character based on Mr. Crowley: a banker who deposits large amounts of cash for a character named Crichton, an opinionated, touchy, but incredibly rich popular novelist, and have the fictitious character Crichton laughing all the way to Crowley’s bank.
December 16th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Great post, thanks. Not sure if you’ve seen this brief recent CNN piece on Gore, but I think it’s quite well done. Here’s a link to the youtube video http://www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com
December 16th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Yup, that was very amusing and informative. Of course, it also confirmed my secret belief that almost all best selling authors are really mentally defective and morally despicable.
On the whole that has always given me a pleasantly warm feeling of superiority. So thanks for the Crichton story.
December 16th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
I had a friend who wanted me to put her horrible ex-boss in one of my books, then kill him slowly. It was a nice enough idea, and I was interested in trying to write-to-order. I put him in there with an altered name and made him a bit of a dunce, but no matter how I tried I couldn’t kill the guy. Others died, plenty of others, but not him. So he lives on…
And with the Crichton thing, I think the insult is less that the character has a small penis, but what he does with that penis, which actually gave me a flash of shock when I read it in the post!
December 17th, 2006 at 4:26 pm
Yeah, Olen, as John points out, the small penis is the safety move, allowing Crichton to go for the jugular with the infant rape.
I’ve seen a couple of reports about this and I agree, that including subtle or entertaining attacks on your enemies in your books is fine, but Crichton’s attack, if intentional, is so unpleasant as to wound him instead of Crowley.
December 17th, 2006 at 6:41 pm
I first saw the tiny penis thing in one of Ann Lamott’s columns. She said she always put her ex-husband in her books, then gives the character a tiny penis so he wouldn’t take her to court.
I have to admit, there is one person on earth that I loathe and I will, God willing, stand in line to micturate upon his grave. This man is such a disagreeable creature that I was compelled to put him in a novel I ghosted. I changed his name by one letter and made him a neo-Nazi pedophile.
So it was pretty much true to his character.
December 18th, 2006 at 10:29 pm
I’ve actually just finished reading NEXT (someone paid me to do this — otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered), and the character of “Mick Crowley” is so superfluous — and the emphasis on his vileness so extreme — that I’d have wondered about it, even without hearing the story behind it.
The book itself is a mess, by the way, and not even particularly entertaining. Wait for the inevitable movie.