Re: Our Town, January 14
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In the first paragraph, we met Amoke (no last name until the fourth paragraph), who came to “our writer’s group . . . and we helped her with it [her book].” If this “writers’ group” is the Feminist Writers Guild, and I suspect it is, then I, who was only a name on a mailing list for the same time period Omoleye was an active and highly visible participant, seemed to have been considered a “member” while Omoleye remained an outsider, forever a visitor to “our” writers’ group. Zell goes on to detail the “feedback” Omoleye received from this welcoming body of fellow writers, a patronizing “encouragement” to continue: “Just keep writing, we’d tell her; we want to read more.” Any desire by this energetic and forthright young woman to be taken seriously was met with the casual dismissal a cynic might mistake for indifference.
And the desk. What can we make of the embarrassing saga of Zell’s bargain with Omoleye to sell her a piece of old furniture Zell doesn’t want? Yes, Fran, selling things to friends does damage friendships. That’s probably why most people don’t do it unless it’s a very sensitive agreement carefully thought out and carried through, and is to the just advantage of both parties. Friends usually give things to one another, without money passing, without questions asked, without concern for value received. And if a bargain were struck that failed because of the pressures of life, one might hope a friend would understand. The fact that Zell tells the world of Omoleye’s default in the “sale” with the overwhelming assumption that the reader has the same bias as Zell toward debt and debtor, friend or foe, is an affront to those of us who cannot begin to understand a “sale” of that kind and who find Zell’s portrayal of Omoleye (in an obituary, no less) as a gal who tried to defraud her friends or renege on agreements, ungenerous, to say the least.
