Who comes across as the biggest asshole in his own memoir? My vote goes for Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast. The book is full backhanded compliments and judgmental descriptions and what is just generally assholish behavior. But it is the section on F. Scott Fitzgerald that takes the cake. Hemingway comes across as a jerk trying to attack a fellow writer. His attack includes a story of Fitzgerald coming to Hemingway where Fitzgerald confesses that Zelda has made him fearful he has a small penis. Hemingway describes how he has to re-assure Fitzgerald that it is a nice size. He also describes how he has to take Fitzgerald to the Louvre to show Fitzgerald naked statues for comparison. Did this actually happen? Who knows, but only a complete asshole would betray the confidence of a friend to tell this story in public.
I haven’t read it, but many have said that Piers Anthony’s Bio of an Ogre would qualify. Anthony goes to great lengths to tell how much smarter and more wonderful he is than other people, and rehashes decades old feuds to show how he was really right all along and that the other people (including some of the most respected names in SF) were stupid jerks for not doing things his way.
How does he justify his pedophilliac writing?
Like I said, I never read it (I am not a fan of Piers Anthony, having gotten totally annyed bored by his writing of Blue Adept – the dullest SF book I ever picked up this side of God Awful of Dune), but judging by the reviews, his answer was probably a variation on, “I’m right and everyone else is wrong.”
In a lot of Harlan Ellison’s autobiographical writings and musings, he comes off as egotistical, and self-righteous and always the smartest guy in the room, but he does it with enough style and wit that it doesn’t become too unbearable.
In Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night, Mailer comes off as an egotistical asshole, but he also is self-aware enought to admit he was being an egotistical asshole, so it’s tolerable.
Julius Caesar, but I don’t know Latin, so maybe in the original he’s more “aw, shucks.”
Sir Harry Flashman.
Otherwise, Harlan. See Dio’s commentary.
Hemingway’s treatment of Fitzgerald is legendarily bad - there is a well-known story about how Hemingway tells of one-upping Fitzgerald: at one point, supposedly, Fitzgerald hesitatingly asked “are the rich different?” and Hemingway portrays himself as delivering the world-weary one-liner “yes - they have more money” which cowed Fitzgerald. Well, I can’t remember which bio of Hemingway’s I read it in, but I believe it is now understood that this episode happened - but Hemingway was the naive question-asker who was put down and Fitzgerald wasn’t involved. So Hemingway not only put down Fitzgerald, but put his (Hem’s) own shame on him…
People have so far listed some good writers, but I must say Loni Anderson. Read it, I dare ya…
I haven’t read any of Ned Rorem’s apparently-fantastic diaries, but Knowing When to Stop is equal parts egotistical blahblah and staggeringly hideous namedropping, with some sexism thrown in. That’s what it seemed like to me, anyway.
Biggest Asshole in Own Memoir?
Me! Someday . . . .
It’s been years since I read it, but I remember seriously disliking Dave Eggars after reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He seemed to come across as very much a conglameration of false-modestly masquerading as self-effaciveness and sincere egotism masquerading as burlesque egotism. Plus, like all memoirs there are people in it who immediately said “that’s not what happened”, but his sister seemed to have a better gripe than most (especially with regards to the amount she took care of their younger brother).
Running With Scissors was often terrifying, but I liked Burroughs far more in that than I did in his follow-ups. He seems like something of “a dick and proud of it” in the memoirs of his adult years.
Just occurred to me – has Donald Trump written some sort of memoir?
Yeah, several.
If we want to look at non-literary figures, I’d nominate Anthony Bourdain, as described in Kitchen Confidential.
Ahmen, God I hated that book and the author, he’s just a huge pompous ass.
His sister later withdrew her complaints and said she was acting like LaToya Jackson. She seems to have had a lot of personal problems and ended up killing herself.
My favorite bit was when he spent an entire chapter trashing his former publisher because they didn’t do everything his way because he’s Just That Great.
Dude had some serious issues going on. Which are also explored, but glossed over as the reason why he’s so great.
The complaints themselves, however, seemed rather detailed and genuine for someone who was having a bad day. My guess would be the retraction was less sincere than the Latoyan venting but done as a sibling favor.