As most followers of The New Yorker's parenting beat this year have already figured, Caitlin Flanagan has left the building. Too much book money to count, too much book writin' to do. Also, too much of her last article [in Dec. 2005, about Mary Poppins] lifted from someone else's biography.
When contacted by the Observer's reporter, she did the coy thing: “'How in the world did you get stuck with the Caitlin Flanagan beat?' Ms. Flanagan wrote. 'Did you lose a New York Observer drinking game?'” Nice of her to use the full name of the paper in her email. Very quotable. Now can we excuse her from the table?
Previously: Mommy War Surplus Goods; All the Items in Caitlin Flanagan's New Yorker Story
Sort of pathetic that it was her most boring article that did her in...or maybe she spent too much time working and her husband got mad??
[she wasn't home enough to tell the cook what to make him for dinner -ed.]
are you kidding? that travers piece was her only GOOD article! i was so relieved to learn that she actually CAN'T do basic reporting; my loathing of her cutesily me-so-provocative personal essays can continue unsullied.
[if she's proved anything, though, it's that bad and not-boring aren't mutually exclusive. and credit where it's due, she IS a mean recapper. -ed.]