The Blake Butler Controversy Feels Gendered

He is certainly not the first grieving spouse to reveal private information, but he might be the first man to do it.

This past week revealed the publication of Blake Butler’s memoir “Molly,” which tells the story of his complicated marriage (aren’t they all?) to Molly Brodak, a poet and baker who cultivated a loyal following of both poetry and baking enthusiasts. Brodak was one of the rare poets who enjoyed fame in her lifetime. Sadly, in March of 2020, Molly Brodak committed suicide. Now, three years later, her widower, Butler, who is also a writer and editor, penned an account of his relationship with Brodak. Among the more scintillating details of the book (and obviously the ones picked up by gossip rags like the NY Post), was the discussion of Brodak’s suicide note and the revelation that Brodak had been carrying on numerous extramarital affairs. One such affair allegedly took place just weeks before her nuptials to Butler. 

Much of the reviews of Butler’s book have been positive, praising Butler’s treatment of the subject with the right tone and distance. But a certain subset of literary critics and bookworms on Twitter have viciously gone after Butler for publicizing not only her infidelity, but the details of her suicide note. Naturally they also took shots at Butler’s writing skills as well, panning it for cliches and weak metaphors. But that just reads like added jabs for good measure. 

One of the leading voices of dissent on Twitter is a novelist called Sarah Rose Etter, who posted a thread describing Butler’s book as “literary revenge porn.” I’ll let her Tweets do the talking:

“watching everyone celebrate what amounts to literary revenge porn against a mentally unwell woman who took her own life has me sick to my stomach”

“nobody wants to ask any questions about the precedent this sets? you all wanna have the contents of your entire cellphone published when you die so we can tear you apart?”

“there is a broader question about allowing a man to tell the narrative of a dead woman's life without challenging any part of it -- the motivation for releasing all of this, the parts both of them played in the relationship, why her work isn't enough to establish her life story?”

Other accounts chimed in as well, calling Butler’s book “disgusting behavior,” “nasty work” and a “bad person.” Some women even Tweeted directly at him, chastising him for writing the book, calling him “revolting” and “repellant.” One woman put together a montage of some of his passages, taking shots at his prose. 

“WHAT IS A MURAL-STYLE DIORAMA OF A SCENE INSCRIBED INTO THE FABRIC OF A BLACK BAG??? HOW IS IT INTERLACED WITH MILES OF SMOKE???” she screams in all-caps.

I’m sorry but this whole narrative seems a bit gendered to me. From the subtle “revenge porn” to the less subtle “allowing a man to tell the narrative,” I can’t help but think there wouldn’t be this level of backlash if the spouses were reversed. If, in fact, Molly Brodak had written a memoir titled “Blake.” Setting aside the very narcissistic presupposition that “Molly” was intended to be a book about Molly Brodak’s life and career and not Blake’s story of grief, revelation and hope, I wonder where the critics were when the roles actually were reversed. 

Robin Williams committed suicide in August, 2014 at the age of 63. The famed actor and comedian was suffering from Lewy body dementia, which was attributed to his cause of death. Or, as his widow, Susan Schneider described in her account published in Neurology: “the terrorist inside my husband’s brain.” She went on to create a documentary about Williams called “Robin’s Wish” and spoke to The Guardian at length about the days leading up to Williams’ death, his Parkinson's diagnosis, his paranoia, and his troubled past with addiction. 

Kathleen Russo also participated in a documentary, called “And Everything is Going Fine.” Russo was the spouse of famed monologist Spalding Gray, who committed suicide by leaping from the Staten Island Ferry in the ice cold waters of January, 2004. In doing promotion for the documentary, Russo revealed details from his private journals, and remarked on the strong likelihood that Spalding Gray would have loved the film if he were around to see it. During an interview for Tribeca, she told her interviewer that she’d gone to see a psychic just after starting the project. The psychic reportedly told her “He’s REALLY excited about the film!” She divulged private conversations about him, and other more ghoulish details of his behavior, including several suicide notes Spalding allegedly left around the house periodically for Russo and his son to find. The subtitle of one interview says of Russo: “Amazingly resilient, she’s our new hero!”

As for suicide notes, who can forget when Courtney Love read the suicide note of her husband Kurt Cobain, during a fan-inspired vigil days after his death. The Nirvana frontman shot himself in his Seattle home in April, 1994. “For Frances,” he writes of his little girl in his heartbreaking final words. “For her life will be so much happier without me.” Fans hugged Courtney Love and mourned with her, as she handed out personal effects and worn shirts from Cobain’s wardrobe. 

Anthony Bourdain didn’t leave a note, but he did send private texts to his ex-wife, Ottavia Busia in the days leading up to his suicide by hanging. He was found by a friend in his hotel room in France. “I hate my fans, too,” he reportedly texted to Busia, “I hate being famous. I hate my job.” Busia shared those text messages for an unauthorized biography of Bourdain titled “Down and Out in Paradise.” Additionally, Bourdain’s ex-girlfriend, actress Asia Argento also revealed private texts outlining a jealous fit Bourdain apparently had after seeing photos of Argento dancing with a French reporter in Rome. “You were careless,” he texted her. “You were reckless with my heart. With my life.” He went on to text her “Is there anything I can do?” She responded: “Stop busting my balls.” A response to which, Bourdain reportedly texted “OK” and then hanged himself. 

The point of this somewhat macabre exercise is that in all of those instances I don’t ever recall the kind of outrage that has been reserved for Blake Butler. To be fair, I do vaguely remember some Op-Eds denouncing Courtney Love for reading Cobain’s note to the public. Perhaps she enjoyed the advantage of not having social media come for her in 1994. But even in that instance, the criticism was levied at the idea of sharing a person’s private correspondence after they’ve died, not that Love was guilty of the audacity of being a woman and presuming to speak for a man. That critique seems new, and it seems exclusively aimed at Butler from a twisted and pervasive notion that everything is about power and oppression. 

Why shouldn’t Butler get to tell his story? What about his desire to share his experience dealing with the trauma of losing his wife while simultaneously discovering her secretive trysts makes it “disgusting behavior?” The only disgusting behavior I see here is the backlash from fans of Molly Brodak, not only for their rank hypocrisy, but for hijacking a person’s artistic expression for the purpose of furthering some broad patriarchal threat narrative.

I get the impulse to defend our heroes and their legacy. But in matters as delicate and nuanced and complicated as a marriage, each person has a story to tell and should have agency to tell it. The fact that Butler is a man doesn’t strip him of that agency, no more than we should strip Susan Schneider, Kathleen Russo, Ottavia Busia, or Courtney Love of theirs. 

Butler responded to the criticism on Twitter. “I have the right to tell my story,” he stated. “I learned that from Molly. The story I tell in “Molly” is mine. You don’t have a right to a word. You know zero except what you see on this embarrassing website. Trying to alter my story with your harebrained gaze is assault. How dare you. Sick.”

I concur. And I’m sorry for his loss.