Back in 2005, when Jennifer Weiner blogged about how the subtext of Curtis Sittenfeld‘s Times takedown of Melissa Banks‘ ‘The Wonder Spot’ was “I’m smarter than she is. Also, my book is not chick lit. It’s CATCHER IN THE RYE! Only with blow jobs,” it didn’t seem likely that the two bestselling authors would be, you know, hanging out anytime soon. So when sharp-eyed interviewer Keris Stainton spotted Sittenfeld’s name in the acknowledgments of Weiner’s latest novel,’Certain Girls,’ she had to wonder how the former ‘enemies’ had become pals.
Weiner gave Sittenfeld credit for extending the olive branch by inviting her to an event: “And now I have a writer friend, which is cool. She was kind enough to read a draft of CERTAIN GIRLS and give me some notes that I found incredibly helpful, and I read her forthcoming novel, and suggested that she send all of the characters shoe-shopping at least once (kidding!)” Heartwarming! We can only hope that this historic accord will go a long way towards solving the problem that Weiner identified (and, um, worsened) in that blog post:”[W]hile we’re performing the online equivalent of pulling each other’s hair and writing mean things about each other’s work on the virtual bathroom walls, men are still getting the majority of reviews in major papers and men are still penning the majority of the pieces in The New Yorker and influential magazines.”