Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   3

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78
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
oft-nominated for the Nobel Prize doing with pulpy romance 
novels like 
Soul/Mate
 and 
Th
  e Stolen Heart
 on her résumé? 
She never meant them to be: Written under pseudonyms 
“Rosamond Smith” (a feminization of Raymond Smith, her 
husband’s name) and “Lauren Kelly,” respectively, Oates was 
surprised and disappointed when her cover was blown by an 
anonymous source in 1987.
✖  ✖  ✖
If you’re hoping for a heaving bosom or two, Benito Musso-
lini’s 
Th
  e Cardinal’s Mistress,
 serialized in a socialist newspa-
per long before he was an iron-fi sted fascist leader, is bound 
to disappoint. While fi lled with purple prose, there’s not a lot 
of action between the sheets. Th
  e story, about a cardinal’s 
unhappy aff air with a doomed woman, is mostly a soapbox 
for its author’s anticlerical ranting. Sorry, Duce—propaganda 
makes terrible beach reading.
✖  ✖  ✖
In between all his Kurd-gassing, Kuwait-invading, and dissi-
dent-murdering, Iraq’s own Great Dictator somehow found 
the energy to pen 
Zabiba and the King.
 Published anonymously 
after the fi rst Gulf War, the book’s authorship by Saddam was 
revealed by a Saudi newspaper in 2001. But was its prove-
nance really a mystery? Not only was there zero criticism of 
the novel upon its release (the Iraqi press called it an “innova-
tion in the history of novels”), the book’s thinly veiled allego-
ries were a total giveaway: A kindly leader (Saddam) loves a 
beautiful commoner (the Iraqi people) who is raped by her 
cruel husband (the United States).
✖  ✖  ✖
Just another breathy melodrama when it was published in 
1981, 
Sisters
 sold poorly and was soon out of print. So why 
are paperback copies selling on the Internet today for $300? 

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79
Because 
Sisters
 makes its author, second lady of the United 
States and vocal gay marriage ban advocate Lynne Cheney, 
look like a big, fat hypocrite. It’s a lesbian romance set in 
the Old West that features lots of romance and sex—both in 
and out of wedlock—and promotes contraceptive use for 
women who want to remain “free.” Asked to comment on 
Sisters
 by the 
New York Times
, Cheney said “I don’t remem-
ber the plot.” Apparently, gay marriage is even more con-
troversial now than it was in 1981. And speaking of 
marriage . . .
10
  Love and Marriage 
(and the Baby Carriage)
While “jumping the broom” has become synonymous with 
the happy institution of marriage, the phrase is borrowed 
from a distinctly unhappy one: American slavery. Denied the 
right to marry legally, slaves improvised ceremonies with 
what they had on hand. Leaping over a broom handle came to 
symbolize a couple’s leap of faith, a tradition still practiced in 
many African-American weddings today.
✖  ✖  ✖
Nothing like a little hard labor to get a marriage off  on the 
right foot. Th
  e Italian custom of sawhorsing holds that neigh-
bors must set up a log, sawhorse, and double-handled saw for 
newlyweds, who halve the log together. Th
  e thicker the log 
and duller the saw the better; the arduousness of sawhorsing 
symbolizes the equally mundane tasks a couple will have to 
endure together throughout their married life.