Mary Novaria

Ex-con, kitchen and craft maven Martha Stewart’s daughter, Alexis, has written a revealing book about growing up with her mommy dearest. Stewart says the book is all in fun, one big joke. Maybe. I’m sure Alexis will laugh all the way to the bank. Remember what Frank McCourt said at the beginning of Angela’s Ashes? “When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I survived at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood.” Authors have been telling tales about their upbringings since the dawn of the age. Readers love to get a glimpse inside the misery of others, especially if those others are celebs. But what about us regular folks? How much is okay to tell? I wrestle with this in my own writing because our stories are rarely only our stories. They almost always involve other people. I don’t want to...

Addiction has become a spectator sport. I’m not a big fan of that. Our culture’s fascination, make that obsession, with celebrity and notoriety has, perhaps, become an addiction as well, and we want more, more, more. More gossip, more dirt, more photos. As our tech capabilities expand, so do our appetites. Our society’s collective and compulsive hunger requires cannibalistic feeding on the bloody mess our so-called idols and stars have made of their lives. We want this so badly that we turn murder supects into overnight celebrities, devoting hours and days and months of coverage to them--especially if they are young, attractive, white women who are charged with killing their children. We want this so badly that we lap up derogatory and a disrespectful monikers like "Octomom." For some of us, in fact for many of us, journalism was once a noble profession. Right now (thank you so very much News Corp), journalists are in the news, breaking laws in order to break a story. Lurki...