Shame on Salon.com

This is not a G-rated post. Or even PG-13. So you might want to look away, because it's about to get ugly.

Let’s play a game of "What if?" for a minute. What if a conservative website, say WorldnetDaily or ChristianityToday.com were to post a book review which waxed poetically about a novel in which a Evangelical Christian kidnapped a gay men, castrated him, and then fed new eunuch his formerly attached body parts? And then, just for the heck of it, criticized an author because his new book didn't any murder and castration of gay men, accusing him of selling out in order to gain mainstream success?

Let's just say that Andrew Sullivan and Salon.com wouldn't be too happy about it. They would be, to quote the mayor of New Orleans, pissed.

Back to reality now. Today's Salon.com features a review of Dennis Coopers "God Jr." Alex Mar describes Cooper's novels as "surprising, moving works of literature" even though most focus on "violent gay sex, pedophilia and the dismemberment of lanky young boys by older men." One in particular includes a scene in which a john does to a young boy exactly what our imaginary evangelicals did to a gay man. While Mar descibes that particular scene as Cooper "at his most repulsive," his reviews seems to lament the lack of violence and pedophilia in the books.

The editors of Salon seem to believe this as a legitimate book to promote, despite such gems as this a direct quote from the review:

If this novel is not Cooper at his best, it's an unavoidable step toward breaking out of the sensational corner he's painted himself into. After all, how many great novels can someone write about raping and dismembering boys?


The answer is none. Mar, by the way, is an editor at a major American magazine. He has, it appears, either no editorial judgment or no common sense. Shame on him. And shame on Salon editors who thought these books worth promoting or this review worth publishing.