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Citizen Newhouse: Portrait of a Media Merchant by Carol Felsenthal Seven Stories, 512 pages, $29.95 WELCOME TO THE NEWHOUSE You're not likely to see a review of Citizen Newhouse in the pages of your daily paper anytime soon. The book is, after all, an extended attack on Si Newhouse, the elder of two brothers whose privately held, multibillion-dollar family business controls The Oregonian. While Donald runs the newspapers, Si oversees a growing stable of glossy magazines (Vogue, Allure, Glamour, Vanity Fair, Mademoiselle and their ilk, as well as The New Yorker and Wired). Viewed broadly, the news in Felsenthal's book is that newspapers like our daily essentially fund Si's often misguided attempts to use his magazines and other expensive toys, like an overpriced collection of contemporary art, to alleviate his own grave case of self-doubt. An unintended consequence of so much critical reporting is a twinge or two of sympathy for this hopelessly miscast billionaire son of a true publishing genius. Nearly a third of the book covers the life of Si's father; much of the rest reads like a relentless, over-the-top personal attack. "The first time I saw him," Felsenthal quotes an editor at Knopf, "I thought, 'God should never make anybody that ugly.'" Like others in his family, this Newhouse is barely 5 feet tall and has a curious physiognomy. To suggest that he's one of the least attractive people on the planet, however, is simply unfair. Si is also portrayed as pathetically inarticulate in private and in public, exceedingly gauche at the dinner table, helpless in personal relationships and stupid in business. Again, Felsenthal has overstated the case but not missed the point. Obsessed with the celebrity, glitz and glitter of the latest thing and utterly undisciplined in the handing of money, this Newhouse comes off as anything but a chip off his old man's block. Richard H. Meeker Editor's note: Richard H. Meeker is the publisher of Willamette
Week. Felsenthal cites his book Newspaperman: S.I. Newhouse and
the Business of News among her sources. Cunt: A Declaration of Independence by Inga Muscio Seal Press, 288 pages, $14.95 WE THE VAGINAS This conglomeration/manifesto of 1990s radical lesbian feminism at times made me wish I had a shredder, and at other times a copy machine. When was the last time you read a book about feminism that made you want to do something besides take it back to the library? Cunt touches on nearly every hot-button issue except, importantly, the essentialist argument implicit in its title: that a woman is essentially defined by one body part. The writing is annoying, but it is rare these days in all but the most radical contexts to read a sentence such as, "If it didn't originate with women or the Goddess, if it does not spiritually, emotionally, physically, psychologically and financially benefit women, it does not serve women. So fucken chuck it." Sounding like a cross between a 'zine writer and a Lynda Barry character,
Muscio approaches what she views as the essential location of woman
power--the cunt--and explores its social and physical features. Muscio
obviously takes her subject seriously, but her in-joke, hipster slang
detracts from her messages. The book works when Muscio characterizes
microcosms of women's power and activism, particularly in the Northwest;
she describes the way women take care of each other in circles of friends,
as teachers, doctors, entertainers or self-defense instructors. Woman-centered
universes are few and far between in our increasingly depoliticized,
but nevertheless still sexist, culture. Muscio lends herself as the
telescope (speculum?) through which we may view one. Sarah Dougher
Secrets of a Telephone Psychic by Frederick Woodruff Beyond Words Publishing, 147 pages, $9.95 STAR 69 You'd know you had good karma if you called a psychic hotline and Frederick Woodruff picked up the line. Over the course of a year Woodruff provided spiritual guidance to 3,287 people as a telephone psychic, and his book based on that experience provides a gentle and insightful glimpse at this staple of late-night infomercials. I expected Secrets of a Telephone Psychic to be irreverent and quirky, with Woodruff poking fun at his customers, the multi-million dollar psychic business and the country that spawned it. I was wrong. Woodruff is no charlatan who chain-smokes and cuts his toenails while tossing off canned answers to the miserable and needy; he's the real thing. For 20 years he's been an intuitive "philosophical counselor" with a private practice. His venture into electronic divination was familiar ground for him and great fodder for a book. However, Woodruff is a little too sincere to pull it off. The book succeeds when he describes caller interactions; his clients are fascinating, and he presents them with care and detail. But the book doesn't give us enough time with them. Instead it jumps frenetically from Woodruff's own childhood to Dionne Warwick's connection to the age of Aquarius to explanations of tarot and astrology. We want to peer behind the curtain and learn what people want from Oz after they've made the long trek up the Yellow Brick Road (or racked up the phone bill); we want confirmation that either our own desires and sorrows aren't wacky, or that only losers make such pitiful calls for help. Woodruff spends too much time on the musings of the Wizard himself. Patty Wentz
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