It's come to my attention from various sources that some people in the book world are taking exception to the product placement deal I struck with Seagrams to help promote Cross Dressing. The gist of what they're saying, or what is implied by their gestures, grunts, and general body language, is that I have cheapened either literature in general or the novel form in particular.

In the article in Brill's Content (June 2000) Jonathan Galassi, editor in chief at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux is quoted as saying, "Well, I think it's pretty lame." Yeah? Well so's that assessment, Johnny boy. First of all, "pretty lame?" Like, whoa dude, that's a weak suck indictment. For someone presuming to 'defend' literature, you ought to dig a little deeper into your pocket and pull out at least a fifty cent word, perhaps a nice Latin phrase, in partibus infidelium, has a nice ring to it, don't you think? Granted, it's not 'pretty lame' but then that's probably why I'm not an editor in chief anywhere.

The notion that this product placement deal could harm literature in some way my novels haven't already done is just plain silly. As if by this time next year, E. Annie Proulx will be revising her latest manuscript to oblige a corporate sponsor, substituting a nicely placed scene involving the 'new condom for cowboys' at the expense of real character development.

But Bill, they cry, doesn't this deal fundamentally cheapen the novel as a form of literature? No. You want to know what fundamentally cheapens the novel as a form of literature? Some of the pitiful advances novelists get. That's what cheapens literature. That and conglomerates making it increasingly difficult for independent bookstores to be competitive. But me? I ain't got the influence, though I appreciate the thought.

Very few seem to be getting the irony of this whole thing. So let me explain. In addition to satirizing organized religion, Cross Dressing is a satire about the advertising industry and the Western drift toward hyper-consumerism. Now if I were to do a product placement deal in a book that had nothing to do with advertising, then I'd be selling out. If I'd had to go back in and add drinking scenes to the book to accomodate the product, then I'd be selling out. But I already had scenes where people were having drinks. Now the only difference is that the drinks have names -- in fact the names are so overstated in 'ad-speak' as to be a joke. Get it? In a book decrying advertising? Ta-da! Irony.

Still, there are some tut-tutting critics who are saying I crossed a line no one else had dared before. Wait a second. You think there are thousands of authors out there who thought of this already, who considered doing a product placement deal for their novel but decided the whole transaction would soil literature and, thus, in defense of the Muses they decided not to do it?

Pu-leeze. All I can say is, that's pretty lame.

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