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- Faith Whittlesey

Many thanks to WorkingGirl for the heads up after my previous post; I found the NPR link in which Robert Olen Butler talks about his now-infamous e-mail. Wow.

Butler insists that his initial email about the break-up, as well as all of his subsequent public blather, is meant to prevent people from saying terrible things about his wife — things which he details, of course. Butler also claims to be deeply grieved that Dewberry, “like many women,” (all we inept little wives, in other words) “had trouble living in the shadow of a stronger man.”

What a liar. The truth is that he’s mad as hell at her. He’s also overwhelmed with embarrassment. Ego-man Butler publically lost his trophy wife to a much-more-famous man. Moreover, she was a wife who had been a trial and a challenge to him since day #1, not because of her inadequacies but because of her irrepressible accomplishments: her very competency. By getting away from him in the end, she finally proved to be a challenge he could neither master nor meet. Pathetically, he is now trying to snatch the attention and victory back for himself by attempting to make Elizabeth Dewberry look like a freak; alas, he only succeeds in making himself look like one.

Creative Commons photo by Sister 72

Author Elizabeth Dewberry has just left her husband for Ted Turner. Dr. Dewberry’s husband is some guy named Robert Olen Butler, and I’m delighted to say I’ve never heard of him.

Apparently Butler is both a professor and a Pulitzer-prize winning author himself. I didn’t know this. What I did know was that his now-estranged wife is no slouch. She’s served as a Playwright-in-Residence, has written plays, articles and at least four novels, one of which is called His Lovely Wife, which I quoted in an earlier post because its description of what it can be like, being married to a professor, was so spot on. I didn’t realize it was quite so autobiographical! Apparently, Dewberry — who is quite lovely — often found herself being introduced just like that, as in, “And here is Pulitzer-Prize-Winning Author, Robert Olen Butler!!” pause. “..and his lovely wife, Elizabeth Dewberry.”

Butler is currently in a lather because of an email about the affair which he sent around to a few of his students, which “somehow” was released to Gawker. I have no idea what Dewberry thinks of her husband’s revelations about her own life history, but Butler clearly believes himself to be quite the unappreciated hero.

In truth, he sounds like a patronizing, class “A” jerk. Not all that different from the other men he describes as Dewberry’s abusers.

Butler (whom, I’m pleased to repeat, I’d never heard of) bemoans the fact that his pretty little wife could never get out of his mighty, Pulitzer-winning shadow, despite his best efforts to pat her on the head as often as he could. This from a man who, rumors have it, once told someone wanting to introduce him at a conference that “When you have won the Pulitzer, you no longer require an introduction.”

Nice. And a great guy to be married to, I’m sure. I wonder what Mr. Marilee Jones is like?

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Related Posts:

The Devil in Ms. Jones: His Lovely Wife
How to (almost) get Marilee