Photo by SJ Penchenski
CONVERSATIONS
A monthly column of interviews with excellent people by Ricky Lee.
Special thanks to Hanna Andrews
Whitney Mallett
Whitney Mallett is bringing back the book review or perhaps reinventing it altogether. The Canadian-born, New York City-based editor and writer has spent over a decade working in independent publishing, penning pieces for major and cult-favorite magazines alike. This past June, she launched The Whitney Review of New Writing, a biannual print bulletin dedicated to all forms of new writing, quickly finding its place among readers as a fresh destination for new modes of criticism. Co-editor of Barbie Dreamhouse: An Architectural Survey and author of Smutburger’s Deliverance, Mallett represents a new guard interested in spotlighting titles with teeth.
Ricky Lee catches up with Whitney to talk founding magazines, becoming a Barbie expert, learning from Jacqueline Susann, and what the second issue of The Whitney Review has in store.
OK, Whitney – so tell me a little about yourself.
I always wanted to be a writer, and then I decided I wanted to be a journalist.
Where are you from?
I’m from Canada.
Oh, really! Where in Canada?
I grew up in Calgary.
I have a friend from Calgary.
We moved there when I was a kid, so it wasn’t like we were from Calgary. It was like a boomtown when I was a kid. A lot of oil. So we moved out there. I was pretty young.
But from where?
From Ontario… I was born in Mississauga. It’s like living in New Jersey, and your dad works in New York.
[laughing] OK, alright, got it.
It’s like a nowhere place, Toronto constellation.
Same here, same here. I grew up in a tiny little town in North Carolina. I totally understand that.
So, then we moved to Calgary; I wanted to be a writer, I wanted to be a journalist; I went to McGill.
Oh, so you went to my favorite city.
Yeah, I lived in Montreal.
What years were you there?
I was there from 2007 to 2011, and there was a lot of music stuff going on, and loft spaces. Like, I wrote for the school newspaper about Grimes before she was even Grimes, and she was Claire Boucher still.
Oh, really?
She was still playing ukulele music. A lot of the people in this little cluster of a music scene. I started making Super 8 films and making music videos.
Photo by Roeg Cohen
And when did you move to NY?
11 years ago.
OK, so you've been here for a while.
Yeah, I’ve been here for a while.
And what did you start doing when you got here? Did you get a job at a magazine, or were you looking for a writing job?
I was always freelance writing, but I did go to grad school at NYU for documentary filmmaking. And I was into that for a little bit. But one of my friends from Montreal moved here around the same time, and she was an experimental musician, Sadaf Nava, a visual artist, and an experimental musician. She was like oh, we need to go to Reena Spaulings openings, you know. She brought me into the art world, and I was excited about the art world as a place of ideas.
So, you moved here 11 years ago; what did you start doing when you got here? You said you were freelance writing for…
I wrote for The New Inquiry and Bullett, RIP Bullett Media, which I feel gave a lot of people their start.
I think I remember Bullett.
Nick Haramis and Ben Barna were the editors at the time, and they were letting a lot of people write pretty freely about whatever they wanted to write about, like Rachel Tashjian and Fiona Duncan.
I remember Bullett, yeah.
The New Inquiry felt very exciting at the moment, too. One of the first things I wrote for The New Inquiry was about net.art and the idea that our generation doesn’t care about selling out. It felt disorienting when I moved to New York, and I’d be at a rave in a Soho basement, and someone in charge was wearing a Monster Energy t-shirt, but I can’t tell if this event was sponsored or not?
Right.
Cory Arcangel had done the readymade of the Applebee’s, and there were other works like that, but they were unaffiliated with the brands they referenced, and then all of a sudden, people were actually collaborating with Redbull.
Right.
There was a shift from this moment where people were appropriating logos ironically, and then the companies were actually interested in working with those kids since they were a part of the target demographic.
Right, to get their audience. What year was this? This was later?
This was probably 2012. The first Redbull art show had Ryan Trecartin and Telfar and Amalia Ulman and the Jogging, DIS curated it.
Correct, exactly, yes.
Photo by Roeg Cohen
I liked to write about how things like brands and logos traffic in culture and how underground things are commodified or how they shift. What might have been subversive loses its teeth, this constant cycle of things being co-opted. It just happens at a faster and faster rate. I’ve been thinking about that moment again recently. The Barbie movie made me re-read Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl, this Tiqqun book…
Are you a Barbie expert?
I am… yes.
Have you always been a Barbie expert?
No.
[Laughs]
But I am now, a Barbie expert.
So, how did you come to do the video on Architectural Digest?
Through PIN-UP. Felix [Burrichter] and I co-edited a book on the Barbie Dreamhouse for its 60th anniversary, and then the Architectural Digest video was a spin-off of sorts.
I saw that; it was great; it was awesome. Did you get a lot of response from it?
Yeah, my mom screenshotted a lot of the comments.
[Laughs] For the Architectural Digest video on YouTube. I watched it at work a couple of weeks ago. So then you just started work freelancing for different magazines and stuff?
I’ve always been freelancing for different magazines.
So, which ones were you working for?
I’ve written for so many places. I was getting bylines for like The New York Times and Artforum but also hosting at the Odeon.
What were you writing about, culture stuff?
Yeah, culture stuff, but at the beginning, I was still doing social issue journalism.
Wow, that’s serious.
And I was still doing broadcast news journalism for a minute. I gave up on it because I realized how jaded people were, and I didn’t want to become like them. They were like, “Get the girl to cry on camera.”
Who was doing this?
I was working with this producer doing little news segments for French TV, and then sometimes I’d pitch the same story for print. So, we went to North Carolina to write about children working in tobacco fields, and we did a story for French TV, and then I wrote about it for VICE.
Wait, so a story about kids working in tobacco fields in North Carolina?
Yeah, and getting tobacco poisoning.
What part of North Carolina, Northeastern North Carolina? Do you remember where?
Yeah, we flew into the triangle, like Raleigh-Durham. I think we were driving around places like Pink Hill and Snow Hill. This was, like, a decade ago.
That’s the general area of where I grew up. Growing up, there were kids who, during the summertime, when it gets really fucking hot in North Carolina and it’s super humid, one of the summer jobs that you could get as a kid was to pick tobacco during the summer. But you had to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get to the tobacco fields at the break of dawn, and then you only worked until 11 o’clock in the morning because then it would just be too hot to be outside. But you could make a lot of money.
But didn’t people have health issues, like it would seep into their skin…
Yes, exactly.
This one kid I remember had to get his gallbladder removed.
Yeah, so, I grew up in that area, and that’s what people did during the summertime. I used to say to my parents, like, I want to pick tobacco, I want to pick tobacco, and they were like, you do not want to go into the fucking tobacco fields. I didn’t want to go either, but my friends were making so much money that I just thought, wow, they were making like $300 a day or something like that. Anyway…
That’s where I went for two days to report.
That’s funny.
I gave up on doing that kind of hard journalism. It felt so under-supported, like how much you’re compensated for how much research and reporting you would have to do. But also, you go in with this naiveté that you’re going to make a difference doing it. And then it ended up feeling exploitative. This kid we interviewed, the union chose one kid who felt comfortable doing media, and then she gave interviews to the BBC, The New York Times, VICE. Like, why does every commercial news enterprise have to do their own story? Why can’t they just share footage? Why does she have to go through it over and over?
Courtesy of The Whitney Review of New Writing
So then, how did the idea come about to start doing this publication, The Whitney Review?
I’ve worked in independent magazines for so long. I know how hard they are and how much work it takes. I used to be like, I’m never starting one myself. I finally just felt like there was a need for this one. This lit scene has emerged, especially in the last couple of years—a new wave of alt-lit, basically. KGB will have a reading, and there’ll be a line-up down the block with people trying to get in. So there’s energy around that right now. But there are also writers who are long-standing icons, say Brontez Purnell or McKenzie Wark. They have a kind of cult status and have had their own followings, but there are a lot of important authors like this who aren't, say, covered by The New York Review of Books. I was feeling like there were a lot of books I wanted to write about, but not a lot of venues for that coverage.
Right.
So I wanted to create a dialogue around interesting titles coming out, and I thought a way to make it possible was to ask for very short format reviews, say only 200 words. When I reached out to writers, everyone had a book they were excited about, but they maybe didn’t have the bandwidth to pitch around a review or write something longer format.
Photo by Ben Taylor
OK, Whitney, so this is the first issue. When did it come out?
The first issue launched at the end of June. It’s honestly been a good reception. My whole life has been delivering Shopify orders at the post office.
[Laughs] You know what, in 2014, I also published my own print magazine. It was very nice, very beautiful, it took a lot of time to do it. It was just me and my friend, who was the art director, and I got people here and there to do interviews with people on all the topics that were interesting to me. There’s an interview in there with this guy, Franklin Sirmans, who’s now the director of the Perez Museum in Miami. He was at LACMA at the time, but he’s in there, and there’s a bunch of fashion stuff, some art stuff, I think some music stuff, also. But once it was printed, I was the one who had to get out there and schlep it from magazine store to magazine store, like, will you take a look at this, will you take this? It’s a lot of work.
It’s incredible to have a printed product, but yes, you don’t just send an email; you have to physically take it in boxes from place to place.
I was writing to people asking if they would distribute it, and it was a lot of work. It was too much. I did one print issue, and then I did another digital issue, and then after that, I was like, it’s just too much work, takes too much time. I didn’t have enough people around me to tackle this, and I couldn’t pay anybody any money or anything like that. I’m always intrigued and admire people who can get it together to print something and get it out there for people to purchase. I mean, that’s great that people are ordering copies of the issue, that you’re schlepping it to them.
I’m so happy. I thought I was going to give it away for free. I didn’t really know what to expect. But people are really responding to it. I mean, I’m a masochist, so I’m fine with doing the work.
[Laughs]
You know, I’m trying to strategize ways to get more money, to keep it going, and make it sustainable. Also, I think the decision to not have images makes it easier.
That cuts down the cost, yeah. Everyone could use what they did for the magazine for other things that might interest them. But it was a lot of work because I had images and photos, and the photo credits, and blah blah blah; I mean, I was very happy with it when it came out. I still have a few copies lying around in my apartment that I see every once in a while.
I would love to see it. What was it called?
I’ll show it to you. It was called The Excellent People because I have this whole thing that I want to write a novel. I don’t know if I’ll ever get around to doing this; it’s sort of like a semi-autobiographical, fictionalized telling of my life story, like being a guy from a teeny town in North Carolina who came to New York City. You know, my real story is that I discovered Interview Magazine when I was a kid, living in North Carolina in high school, and then somehow I found out who Andy Warhol was, and then I found out that he had a magazine. So, I got my hands on a copy of Interview, and then I was so blown away by all the people that were in there, the whole scene that he was covering, all the different personalities and stuff. I wanted to go to New York City, meet all those people, and be at those kinds of parties. I studied French in college, so I lived in Paris before going to New York City, but when I came to New York, one of my first jobs was working at Interview, which was like an amazing dream come true. So I got a job working there, and I met all those people I would read about in interviews and hung out at those parties and all this other stuff. It’s like a fictional version of my experience in New York City.
When I was growing up, I really liked trashy beach novels. Do you know Jacqueline Susann? Jacqueline Susann was this woman who was around in the 60s and 70s. She wrote stories about living in New York City and just all the mean, nasty, conniving people that you can meet depending on what your job is and that sort of stuff. The novels were very successful, so I used to read those novels when I was growing up. I’m not trying to write some book that will win a Pulitzer prize or something like that; I just want to write a well-written, beachy, sort of summer, like a fun novel…
“I wanted to create a dialogue around interesting titles coming out, and I thought a way to make it possible was to ask for very short format reviews, say only 200 words.”
So, the reviews you have in the current publication are all original. Did you ask the writers to choose a book or assign them?
A mix, half-and-half, maybe. It’s mostly these short format reviews with a few longer features. The first issue had four interviews and then one longer essay by Philippa Snow, who lives in Norwich. She’d reached out to me before, when I was at PIN-UP, asking to write about Selling Sunset and it was, like, the best article I’ve ever read, and I became kind of obsessed with her. I asked her if she wanted to write anything for the launch issue, and she suggested this essay on celebrity novels.
Novels written by celebrities?
Yes. Nicole Richie wrote a novel, and Kim, Kourtney, and Khloe co-wrote a novel. Pam Anderson wrote her memoir recently, but in the early 2000s, a novel was ghost-written “by” her.
I think I remember hearing about this. I certainly remember the Nicole Richie book; I remember when that came out. I thought I would buy and read it, but I never did. But now you’ve reminded me. Did you read it?
I didn’t read any of them, but Philippa’s essay makes it sound like Nicole’s is the best of those books.
[Laughs] That it’s actually readable, maybe.
It sounds quite postmodern, too, in the sense that the main character is definitely Nicole Richie-esque, like a Nichole Richie proxy, but then in the fictional universe, she meets the real Nicole Richie!
I’m telling you, I remember wanting to read this book, and I never got around to it. I’m slightly fascinated by Nicole Richie.
I think she’s interesting.
Did you ever see her show? It was on Quibi… anyway, I used to watch that show, like every episode; I thought it was so fucking funny. I mean, I think she’s incredible.
When you re-watch these Simple Life episodes and what’s going on and them doing that drag in those places, it’s really iconic.
Photo by Maya Margolina
That’s also my aspiration. I’ll tell you, I want to write the next Da Vinci Code.
[Laughs] Why Da Vinci Code?
This is my long game with The Whitney Review, to be completely honest, to figure out how the publishing industry works and make connections so I can launch my novel, Da Vinci Code, but set in the art world.
That’s amazing.
Sometimes these genre books are unfairly maligned, but they are really hard to do well, and they can be so fun to read. There’s this exhilaration of solving the mystery and unpacking the conspiracy. I want to write a book that gives people pleasure like that.
It would be amazing. I’m not trying to write the next literary sensation. I’m a good writer, so it’s not horribly written, but the subject matter will just be like…
You don’t need to make people, like, force themselves to read it.
Right, I worked in the magazine industry, so there are tons of stories to tell about that and book publishing; I was a fashion editor for a little while, and now I work in an art gallery. There are tons and tons of things that happen every day at the gallery that could be interesting.
Right. So what’s this woman’s name again, the one writing in the 60s and 70s?
Jacqueline Susann. I’ll send you her name. Everyone made fun of her, but if you read articles about her, she invented modern book publicity because she was such a genius in promoting her books when they came out. If you look at shows from the 60s and 70s, like The Tonight Show, she was on all the major entertainment talk shows and stuff like that. Her husband was a big movie producer, I believe, and there’s always some singer who’s a big star on Broadway who has a dark secret that’s going to come back to maybe destroy her career…
I love that.
[Laughs] Valley of the Dolls was about three women…
Oh, she’s Valley of the Dolls?
That was her first book, and it was a huge sensation. That book is all about three women from small towns who come to New York City to make it, and then they make it, and then they become drug addicts, they get divorced, or the glamour of what they were searching for is not so glamorous once they get what they actually want. That's the kind of book that I want to write.
She also wrote a book called The Love Machine, which was about a guy who was a big TV newscaster guy, and all the women in New York City wanted him, but he also had some dark secret from the past that would come back to haunt him and threaten his career. So look, I like a very well-written novel as well, but I also like Jacqueline Susann. [laughs]
Courtesy of The Whitney Review of New Writing
Something I’m actually researching right now for a future issue is this writer, Judith Gould. Do you know Melissa Burns? Melissa told me that in the 90s, there was a stylist on a shoot who styled her. He lived at the Chelsea Hotel and had been a model for Mapplethorpe photos. But then he and his partner were making money by writing romance novels under the pseudonym Judith Gould. Like best-seller soft-core romance for housewives…
Did she tell you who this person was? And are they still alive?
Nick Bienes, the stylist she’d met who was the leather daddy, sometimes Mapplethorpe model, he’s passed. But his writing partner—and I think they were boyfriends at a point, too—Rhea Gallaher, I found out he’s still alive and living in upstate New York.
And what year were they active and doing this stuff?
I think the 80s and 90s. I want to do an oral history and talk to people who knew them.
So, in the next issue, how will it be different than the first one? Or how will they be the same in terms of expanding on anything?
I’m going to somewhat keep with the format with a few feature interviews and a couple of longer essays, and then the bulk of it will be the shorter reviews. I’m obsessed with, like, low-brow and high-brow, and that’s already in the DNA of the first one. So, keep moving in that direction.
Courtesy of Whitney Mallett
How have you been promoting this issue since it came out?
Instagram…
I mean, I’ve seen you everywhere.
Yeah, it’s working.
Yeah, I’ve seen a bunch of interviews and stuff with you; you seem to be pretty well-connected.
I have a lot of goodwill with people, but I also think it’s an idea that just hit at the right time.
Well, there was still a void left. There’s still The New York Review of Books, and Bookforum went away and is apparently back now. I would think what you’re doing is still different from Bookforum.
I do think what I’m doing is a little more…
More interesting.
I’m def covering writers who wouldn’t get in Bookforum. There’s still more gatekeeping there.
Right.
It definitely feels like there’s a swell of new print publications, too.
Well, I guess it’s good that people are returning to it. Internet writing is still going on. Are people still doing blogs?
Yeah, Substack is the new blog.
That’s what someone was telling me, also. Because all of a sudden with the Internet, everyone decided they were a writer. Like, anybody could be a writer. But also, you could get your own exposure. You don’t have to go to a book publisher and try to convince someone to publish it.
Photo by Acudus Aranyian
Artists, at the end of the day, more and more, are just selling their personality, the essence of who they are. Certain people are craft-based painters or have a skill or virtuosity, but for the most part, it’s who you are that captivates people. I feel like this shift already happened in the art world, but then podcasts happened, and then it was like, oh, we don’t even have to make anything. We can just be ourselves, record talking, and put it on the Internet. It’s gotten even more direct with the live reading. You can go up onstage; you don’t even have to produce a podcast; you can just go up on stage and entertain someone talking for 20 minutes.
You do that sort of stuff?
Yeah, I do readings, I do perform.
Would you do a podcast?
Yeah, I would do a podcast.
Have you thought about doing one?
Yes. I’m sure you’ve thought about doing a podcast, too.
I mean, hasn’t everyone thought about doing a podcast? Doesn’t everybody have a podcast already? I used to be really into listening to podcasts, like in 2019.
Now it’s over.
Now everybody has a fucking podcast.
The podcast money is dried up.
Now, I don’t listen to any podcasts.
I’ll be honest, I never actually got that into listening to them, but I really like listening to Audible book tapes.
Can you find Valley of the Dolls on Audible?
If someone still needs to figure it out, they should be getting, like, a really good actress to read that. Who do you think would be the best person to read that book?
I’m sure that book still sells.
They already have, like Maggie Gyllenhaal reading Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Diane Keaton reading Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem. They just need someone like that, but for Valley of the Dolls.
[Laughs] That’s genius thinking.
The Whitney Review of New Writing
Issue 002
Winter 2023/2024
Ricky Lee photographed at 53 Restaurant, New York. Courtesy Fotini Lane.
Ricky Lee is a writer and curator based in New York.