The Leech Woman

Camille Scaysbrook (verona_beach@geocities.com)
Thu, 20 May 1999 23:07:34 +1000

Hey, did anyone else see the article about Joyce Maynard in the New York
Times? (It was published in the Sydney Morning Herald today, with a byline
that it was from the NYT - `Leech Women Strike Again' by Maureen Dowd) I
was going to transcribe it here but I think I'll wait to hear if everyone
else has seen it or not.

Basically the gist of it was a comparison of Monica Lewinsky and Maynard as
self-seeking go-getters who rather than shouldering at least some of the
blame that is due to them, are limelight hopping and feasting on the blood
of the co-commitants of their crimes - the framework being a comparison to
a 50's B movie `LEECH WOMAN! She drains men of their love and lives!' (: It
wasn't long but it was quite interesting and had a few direct quotes from
the Salinger letters that are being auctioned - 

`The typed and handwritten letters .... [go] from wanting to meet her to
meeting her, from asking her to `stop-Salingering me' to `Jerry S' to `XXX,
J' to `It's late, Kiddo, and I'm tired'

I should at least transcribe the final paragraph:

`There are those that say that these women were victims of older men, and
so have a right to revenge. But experiencing the ordinary brutality of love
does not make one a victim. It makes one an adult. Or should.'

Camille
verona_beach@geocities.com
@ THE ARTS HOLE http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/6442
@ THE INVERTED FOREST http://www.angelfire.com/pa/invertedforest