Maureen Callahan

My aside, because they all knew it was bullshit and these people were getting jobs they had no business getting.

These included Dana Kennedy, who had spent most of her career at the New York Times doing corporate communications before being named publisher of Simon & Schuster's flagship imprint, Phoebe Robinson, a stand-up comedian.

who now runs the Penguin Imprint Tiny Reparations books.

And it goes on and on and on, even to talk about lower level hires who editors would be shocked to realize had no idea how to even, Adam, write an email.

Adam, how difficult was it for you to sell your book?

What do you think it's going to take, Adam, for this –

I don't even know what kind of, this isn't even thinking, this is just sort of reflexive virtue signaling.

It's something that you and I both know a good portion of people who are pushing these agendas don't even really believe and they know it's awful and they know it's awful for books and book publishing and ideas and honestly the health of the American mind.

So what will it take for this spell to break?

Yeah, I admire your optimism about it.

I really do.

It depresses me, really.

It really just does because there are times when I think, oh, God, I wish I had been working as a real writer in the 60s or the 70s in New York where everybody wanted to be provocative and come up with the sharpest argument or the most offensive idea and see who could—

you know pull that thing over the finish line and you know today like a norman mailer would have been canceled uh you know a gay talese would have trouble he would be canceled after having written radical chic which is something i think every young journalist should read um and it's it's it's creating a cosseted culture that just will not brook any dissent and um

You know, I think that your book is a very important tonic and corrective to that.

So thank you for coming on the nerve.

That book is dangerous.

by Adam.

Thanks for coming on.

That does it.