Stephen King is “very uneasy” about how we’ve “muzzled” Woody Allen

Photograph: Rick Kern/WireImage (Getty Photos)

The literary world noticed itself thrust into the general public highlight this week, after a walk-out protest by staffers at Hachette Guide Group led the writer to cancel plans to publish Woody Allen’s new memoir Apropos Of Nothing. The Hachette staffers cited, as the rationale for his or her pushback, all these causes folks have been voluntarily disassociating themselves from Allen for years: The controversy surrounding his marriage to Quickly-Yi Previn, in addition to long-standing allegations from Dylan Farrow that he sexually abused her when she was a toddler. (The truth that Hachette not too long ago printed a e book by Ronan Farrow, who’s been a vocal advocate on his sister’s behalf, solely uglied-up the optics much more.)

However we’ve to ask ourselves—and by “we,” we imply Stephen King, and by “ourselves,” we imply “Stephen King’s Twitter followers”: Wbecause it proper for Woody Allen to be brutally silenced like this, within the type of a writer not eager to print and promote his e book? In spite of everything, it’s a slippery slope: If Hachette refuses to publish Allen’s memoir—as a substitute returning the e book’s rights to him to hawk elsewhere—the place will this wave of anti-memoir crusading cease? Will we quickly see former generals “muzzled” from the superstar memoir market? Veteran actors not capable of inform their anecdotes of the time Michael Douglas purchased them lunch? Will these zealots ever cease, or will we quickly face a world the place not even the mildest of well-known particular person anecdotes is not secure to be learn?

What’s fascinating about King’s feedback—which he posted on social media yesterday—is that he suggests that folks ought to as a substitute “vote with [their] pockets” in relation to whether or not or not they help Allen…although that seems to be precisely what Hachette did (albeit, considerably belatedly). King notes that whereas he doesn’t care about Allen in any respect, he’s “very uneasy” with how the long-time creator and director have been “muzzled.” However, as many individuals have identified—each within the responses to King’s tweet, and in addition simply normally, for years—ending a enterprise relationship with somebody shouldn’t be the identical as censoring them. Allen may self-publish his e book tomorrow, or drop it on the web, or rent a skywriter to spray it throughout a transparent blue sky, and nobody would, or may, cease him from doing so. They only wouldn’t be obligated to offer him any cash for it.

COPYRIGHT_BP: Published on https://bingepost.com/stephen-king-is-very-uneasy-about-how-weve-muzzled-woody-allen/54742/ by - on 2020-03-07T22:53:44.000Z