I Hereby Volunteer To Write Ryan Gosling’s First Novel

I’m going to break the Rumpus rule against pop culture here for a minute. (Hell, it’s Saturday.) It’s only to note Gwyneth Paltrow’s complaint, this week, that the New York Times was incorrect in its report that Paltrow used a ghostwriter on her cookbook. I do not care too much about Paltrow’s case, though I suspect that the (alleged!) ghostwriter in question — a woman named Julia Turshen — is having a no-good, very-bad week. I can’t seem to find a comment from her anywhere. In my mind’s eye, she’s sitting in a room twitching somewhere, her contract with Paltrow taped over her mouth.

More than a few Rumpus readers make their living by ghostwriting, I’d guess. It’s not something I’ve done myself, but knowing so many wonderful writers who do it activates my latent mama bear tendencies. Step off, Paltrow. You’re like the boss at the company claiming your underlings don’t exist, all those titanic CEOs claiming they deserve those salaries because they’ve steered the ship well, as though there were no engineers in the boiler room.

Big Important People’s anxiety about ghostwriting is interesting in only a limited way. Paltrow’s skittish need to run all over the media this week declaring sole authorship is not based in legitimate concern, as far as I can see. There may be a few fans out there in the world who believe these big book products to be little vials of captured sweat, drawn direct from the source’s brow. But they are few. For the rest of us, these products are something we can put on an e-reader and read, and/or use to whip up a little gluten-free macrobiotic lime-rosemary focaccia, before we have to dive back into To the Lighthouse. So the culprit here is ego, a celebrity who worries that any chip in her varnish will bring the whole house down. How exhausting it must be to be that kind of person.

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