Wherein sometime winner-at-snacking Erin Hosier bitches about all time loser at originality, The Penis Review

Men: they've come a long way, haven't they? Sometimes it's just nice to sit back and enjoy their successes, especially in publishing. Take the recent announcement that Farrar Straus & Giroux's favorite son, Lorin Stein, will succeed Philip Gourevich as editor of The Paris Review. Stein, still in his thirties, has edited winners of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, he's dined on expensive burgers with Franzen and chug-a-lugged with Lipsyte. He probably races Lydia Davis to the Sunday crossword finish line, and you know he does that shit in red pen.

This may not seem like a segue, but one of my favorite pastimes is emotional eating. Recently I discovered "Mint Oreo Fudge Creams" and they're apparently so rare that I could only find a picture of them on ebay. Think Thin Mint with Oreo cream inside. Anyway, I was reading New York Magazine last Wednesday, and eating these wonderful cookies, and then I stumbled upon this profile on Stein's "ascent" to TPR, and within moments upon finishing the piece I totally barfed.

Why do I care so much? What does it have to do with being an agent? I am relieved that I don't ever again have to call this guy on the phone to pitch him a novel, only for him to sigh the sigh of a billion put-upon brain cells, only to invite me not to send on the grounds that it's unlikely to be strong enough for FSG (the only editor in my career who's ever said anything that pretentious). I think part of the problem is that I still haven't completely recovered from this appalling NYT profile of Stein back in 2007, wherein he talks about the glamour of corduroy while apple-picking in Frankfurt. I mean, we get it, it's good to be a gangsta. Look, if the appointment of another white, privileged, overeducated, alcoholic is TPR's idea of a "bold choice," well then mazel tov. But I just think it would have been so much more interesting (and newsworthy) to get another kind of person in that position. Who knows, maybe Meghan O'Rourke, the brilliant poet and editor didn't want it. But if nothing else this post is really just a plea to New York media: please stop cluttering up feature space on dudes who have already won at the game of life. I promise they're gonna be okay.