Rebecca Brando
Mafia n. 1: a secret criminal society of Sicily or Italy.... 2: a group of people likened to the Mafia; esp. a group of people of similar interests or backgrounds prominent in a particular field or enterprise: clique.
--Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
In no way do I mean to construe that anyone involved with Huge House looks or sounds anything like Marlon Brando in The Godfather. Nor has anyone in the local book world, as of this writing, awoken to a severed horse head in his or her bed (at least not literally). But in the week since this paper printed my evisceration of Richard Hugo House ["Open House," July 24] in which an anonymous source likened Hugo House to "a mafia," rumors have been flying like bullets in a mob flick (i.e., quickly and in every direction) about the identities of the unnamed sources--namely, the one who made the "mafia" comment.
In the article I disputed the whole "mafia" thing, calling it "fairly bogus." And it is fairly bogus--Rebecca Brown, Matthew Stadler, Emily White, Charles Mudede, and Stacey Levine are all linked to Hugo House in a mysterious, mythic, nearly numinous way (Levine, for example, has only ever been involved in one event there: a lecture concerning a goose)--but it is also, I now see, fairly true.
"That was the one mistake you made," someone closely tied to Hugo House said the other day. "It is a mafia." And, sure enough, this past week, certain of the so-called Hugo House "mafia" seemed to be acting like members of the Corleone family: protective, insular, indignant, suspicious. One of them repeatedly asked me point-blank who the anonymous sources were, as if I could be beaten into submission; others made phone calls, espoused theories, and made vague threats.
Who are my sources? I will never tell, and you would never guess. The quotes came from interviews with dozens of people who write, read, teach, critique, sell, distribute, and organize events around, and support the creation of books in, our city. It would be futile to attempt to identify all the people I talked to, and beside the point to expose them, because gripes about Hugo House are all so similar--so much so that some people have quietly taken credit for things they thought they had said, but hadn't. ("Which of those quotes in the story were mine?" a high-ranking employee at one downtown bookstore asked me; indicatively, none of them were.)
Surely, the "mafia" quote will be remembered long after the rest of the article is forgotten. Of course that accusation carries a particularly uncomfortable sting for any writer whose literary persona is wrapped up in the idea of being someone who doesn't belong. Through their alliance with Hugo House, certain members of the so-called mafia certainly never expected to become thought of as, of all things, insiders.
