Do I Have a ‘Problem’ with Elizabeth Gilbert?

By Mad Dog
Published: Aug 12, 2009

Reading my review of Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man’s Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand, some have asked if I have a “problem” with Elizabeth Gilbert. Well, yes. Let’s ignore the possible calculation in the book’s content — I have an odd feeling that food, spirit and love are issues that resonant deeply with millions of dissatisfied middle-class white women, who are, as it happens, big book buyers — and consider her publishing deal. On one hand, I applaud any writer who can score a contract for writing about her next, as-yet-unlived year. On the other, as a reader noted, “Isn’t it amazing how she negotiated a fat book deal during her most profound spiritual and life crisis?” Finally — and chalk this up to intuition, which is often flawed — I don’t buy her story of the end of her marriage, not that I expect her ex-husband to correct it in his book.