The Times owes Erich Segal a new obit!

Maybe it’s just me, but The New York Times seems to be doing a lot of kicking of people when they are down—even dead—lately. And I’m beginning to get fed up with it.

First, David Brooks, in his pseudo-academic way, tried to ream Haiti a new one when there were still people buried in rubble, bodies were lined up on the broken streets, and people were starving to death. Instead, Brooks got reamed by Matt Taibbi on these very pages.

But then the Times did it again today, and in the obit section no less.

As fate would have it, two well-known authors have died and their obits ran today: Erich Segal (obit here) and Robert Parker (RIP Bob). Predictably, the Times editors allowed the Parker obit to gush with praise and admiration for the kind of man everyone (at least the men) at The Times aspires to be: big, brawny, irreverent, devil-may-care and yet somehow sensitive in that very manly way.

But poor Erich Segal took it on the chin. Let’s take a look at the two pieces.

First, I want to say that I admire Robert Parker’s work. He and I both share a love and respect for Raymond Chandler, and Spenser is certainly one of my favorite contemporary detectives. So I have no problem with the author himself, as far as he goes. He’s no Chandler, but he does an honest enough knock-off of the master and he never made any claims to originality. Fine fellow all the way around.

How does The Times treat him, though? Like frickin Hemingway or something, as you’ll see. Here’s a slice from the top of the obit: “… he churned out entertaining detective stories with a remarkable alacrity that made him one of the country’s most popular writers.”

So popular, in fact, that –quick, name five books by Parker. Name two. Name one. Guess!

I bet you can name one book by Erich Segal, though. There, you see!

But the obit continues with its fawning praise of Robert Parker: “Mr. Parker wrote the Spenser novels in the first person, employing the blunt, masculine prose style that is often described as Hemingwayesque.”

Wow! Hemingwayesque! What does that even mean? I thought he was Raymond Chandleresque. But that’s not good enough for the manly man worshipers at The Times. So he must then be elevated beyond what Parker would have claimed for himself!

Then, after a rollicking good time talking about Parker’s guilty pleasure of consuming doughnuts and cooking for his friends, and on and on, we get to the last sentence of the obit.

“Every one of his books was dedicated to his wife.”

Isn’t that touching? What a wonderful way to close the obit—like laying a beautiful bunch of roses on the grave or something. Really, a very nice touch.

Again, I have no quibble with Robert Parker’s obit what-so-ever. I think he deserves a warm obit, and he got one.

But Erich Segal—he didn’t fare quite as well.

Here’s how The Times kicks off its reprise of the life of Erich Segal: “Erich Segal, a Yale classics professor turned popular writer whose first novel, “Love Story,” became a staggering commercial success if not quite a critical one when it appeared in 1970, died on Sunday at his home in London.”

So Robert Parker was “one of the country’s most popular writers” while Erich Segal had a “commercial success if not quite a critical one” with his blockbuster “Love Story.” Hmmmm…

Let me just say something about “Love Story.” For people of my generation (which is to say pretty old people who still wallow in the 1960s), “Love Story” was a signature event. Sure, you can say it was maudlin and cleverly crafted to play on the emotions. But you know what? SO WHAT! It fricking WORKED! I took my girlfriend to see it when it came out, and just that single act absolved me of many serious transgressions. She loved that movie, and so did millions of other people around the world. I read the book too—hey, it made her happy, and I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. Was it great literature? Probably not. I’m certainly not on par with the New York Times book critics. But Americans loved the book and the movie.

And that probably really pissed the scholarly book critics at The Times off no end. Because in their arrogance, the people at The Times could not possibly allow themselves to put their imprimatur on such balderdash. I’m sure there were all sorts of snide remarks and jokes around The Times office for years that invoked the tawdriness and literary deceit of “Love Story.” Just one more example of how disconnected The Times staff is from the rest of the country.

OK, back to the obit. It continues: “While millions of readers swooned, most reviewers harrumphed. “The banality of ‘Love Story’ makes ‘Peyton Place’ look like ‘Swann’s Way’ as it skips from cliché to cliché with an abandon that would chill even the blood of a True Romance editor,” Newsweek wrote.” Odd, no quote from a Times reviewer…

Then another nasty swipe at Segal: “In early 1971, after “Love Story” was submitted for consideration for a National Book Award, the fiction jury threatened to resign in a body unless the novel was removed from contention. It was.” I bet they were uncorking Champagne bottles in the Arts & Literature section of The Times newsroom when that news smoked across the wires.

Then, after pooh-poohing the recently deceased Segal some more, we get to the kicker of the obit.

Now remember, Robert Parker’s kicker was designed to suggest that he had a dog-like devotion to his wife. But what does Segal get? After listing more of his works (many of them quite scholarly, in contrast to Robert Parkers’s opus), here’s the last line in the only obit Erich Segal will ever receive in the New York Times:

“None has appeared on The Times’s best-seller list.”

This is an outrage. Not only is this yet another slight by a newspaper that clearly never recovered from the success of “Love Story” (New York Times hardcover bestseller list for more than a year), but this is like pissing on his grave compared to the roses Parker got to conclude the only obit he’ll ever get in The Times.

What makes this all even worse is that, almost as an aside, the obit mentions that Segal had suffered from Parkinson’s disease for 25 years! Do the math: In 1975, right after his “commercial” triumphs, he finds out he has an incurable, wasting disease. The obit writer never returns to this theme, one that might suggest courage in the face of adversity as Segal continues to teach and author book after book. Robert Parker’s lust for doughnuts gets more ink than Segal’s struggle with Parkinson’s disease.

Coming on the heels of David Brooks’ colossal lack of sensitivity, this may seem like no big deal. I think it’s a big deal. And I bet both Robert Parker and Spenser would say “nuts!” to the Times if they read Erich Segal’s only obit in the New York Times. Because this is The Times hitting back at a dead man one last time, punishing him for a success that the newspaper didn’t see coming and could not condone or admire or enjoy in any way. Can you imagine how painful it must have been for The Times staff to see “Love Story” on its own bestseller list for more than a year? Well, they finally got even. I hope they’re happy. Erich Segal deserved a damn sight better from you, you heartless bastards.