I’m curious what the magnitude of order difference there is between the Twitter reaction to this book cancellation & those who actually dig back in and read Norman Mailer’s essay or James Baldwin’s reply?

Is it no longer the case that “any publicity is good publicity”?

ironic that Norman Mailer, who’d deliberately hoped to provoke controversy, is being repudiated/ censored in an age in which “controversy” is unfashionable because it hurts some individuals’ feelings.
today, issues are not debated, just deleted. https://t.co/ViRY9hfxBx

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 3, 2022

A junior staffer can get a book cancelled over a controversial, 60-year-old essay that sparked a brilliant, nuanced and thoughtful response from James Baldwin when it was published. We studied both essays in grad school and you could never understand the one without the other… https://t.co/Sni94qr5rq

— Thomas Chatterton Williams (@thomaschattwill) January 3, 2022

EXCLUSIVE: Random House not moving forward with 2023 Norman Mailer book after staffer objects to his “White Negro” essay, from @MichaelWolffNYC @TheAnkler and confirmed by the author’s son Michael Mailer https://t.co/X261dOuB1Z pic.twitter.com/5WsnGHbB14

— Janice Min (@janicemin) January 3, 2022