Site Presented By
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
Lauren Weisberger talks about life as an underling at Vogue, how her editor shields her from negative press, and her new roman a clef, "The Devil Wears Prada."
Apr 24, 2003 | Lauren Weisberger wedges her lanky frame into a corner seat in the back of an Upper East Side cafe. "Is this OK?" she asks, tucking a strand of her long blond hair behind her ear and poising herself to move if necessary. "Sure," I shrug, "it's fine." She seems a little nervous, and understandably so.
Weisberger's "The Devil Wears Prada" -- a breezily written, thinly veiled roman à clef about the year she spent at Vogue as power editor Anna Wintour's assistant -- chronicles the experiences of Andrea, a recent college grad who works at Runway magazine for an abusive editor. The book was hotly anticipated by media insiders and publishers as both a tell-all about the inner workings of the fashion magazine world and the summer '03 version of last year's bestselling "The Nanny Diaries." The buzz surrounding the book has been amplified by talk of a six-figure advance and a comparable sum for the movie rights, which were sold before the manuscript was even finished.
Several of the book's reviews have been harsh, and many of them deeply personal. Of particular note was a piece in the April 13 New York Times Book Review by the former editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar, Kate Betts -- once an employee of Wintour herself. Betts denounced the book as "bite-the-boss fiction" and treated the lead characters, Andrea and Miranda, as direct proxies for their respective counterparts, Weisberger and Wintour. "Andrea has an unbecoming superiority complex and is just as much a snob as the snobs she is thrown in with," Betts wrote. "[She] makes no bones about the fashion business being beneath her, or that her true calling is not to be fetching tall lattes for Anna/Miranda but to be supplying high-minded prose for The New Yorker."
Weisberger, in a preppy rugby shirt, jeans and no makeup, hardly looks like the bitter fashionista one would imagine grinding a metaphorical Manolo into the neck of one of the most feared editors in the fashion industry, as Andrea eventually does in a climactic blowup with Miranda, and as some say Weisberger did with Wintour by writing the book. Betts' sentiments have been echoed by others who have charged Weisberger with ingratitude, snobbery and, perhaps most damning of all, bad writing. Salon talked to Weisberger about the chilly reception the book has received, the charges leveled against her by Betts and others, and her experiences as a writer.
Why did you choose to write a book that so closely mirrored your own experiences?
I mean, it doesn't so closely resemble my own experiences, only in that, yes, one of my jobs out of college was working at a magazine. To a certain extent, you do write what you know. Everyone does. I'm only 26 so I don't have that much experience doing anything anywhere so I'm not equipped to write about 99 percent of the topics out there. But I thought, you know, it's a fun setting. At least, I think it's a fun setting. The fashion world naturally lends itself to being glamorous and exciting with all the models and the clothes and everything.
How do you feel about the reception the book has gotten so far?
It's completely overwhelming. I don't think I ever expected the book to get this kind of attention -- negative or positive. My publisher calls every day and gives me sales figures -- which mean nothing to me. People tell me that it's doing so well and that's amazing. The anticipation was sort of stressful, but now that it's out there, and I know people are buying it ... For the most part, I've gotten nothing but a ton of support and a ton of enthusiasm. There is, for sure, negative stuff out there and that's not easy to read. I don't think it's easy for anyone. But I really am focusing on the good stuff. Just the idea that people are reading it is awesome to me.
What did you think of Kate Betts' review in the New York Times?
It's not easy to get bad reviews, so what more can I say? I can't speak to anyone's agenda. I don't know her. I can't presume to know ...
Why do you think the Times had her do the first review?
If you find the answer to that question, I would love to know. I'm the first in line for that answer. [Laughing] I have no idea. I'm kind of curious.
Have you tried to find out?
No, I can't -- it's just been so busy and so crazy and there are a lot of good things to focus on. I would be lying if I said I didn't wonder, but I certainly haven't done anything to figure out why they asked her to review it.
I know a lot of authors who have this "I'm not reading any reviews" rule. Do you not read certain reviews? Or do you have someone filter them?
My editor filters them. She's the first one who introduced me to the concept of "you don't have to read everything that's written about you." She sends me good things, fun things. And, you know, I have read some of the negative ones, but it's usually when I stumble on them myself. People are like, "Oh, come on. You must be reading it secretly," but I'm really not. It's easier to just pretend it doesn't exist.
There was a lot of publicity before your book came out, and people were throwing around these very high advance figures -- probably because the magazine world is very interested in the publishing world and vice versa.
Here in New York we're media obsessed. Writers write about writers who write about writers and reporters and freelancers, and it's just a festival of information. We're all analyzing and examining and predicting and I can't imagine that it's like that everywhere else. I'm really, really looking forward to my book tour for that reason. I want to leave New York for a little while, hear from people who are actually reading the book -- not book critics, not reviewers, not New York media, but, you know, the people I intended it for. I think it's getting different reception elsewhere.
