| |  | | | | November 21, 2017 | Letter No. 113 | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | |  | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | | | | | | | | | | Rachel Comey Is the Designer Women Need Right Now | | | | By Tahirah Hairston | | |
Rachel Comey is dressed like her idea of vacation — clad in a chambray henley T-shirt, pink and green trousers with a snakeskin print, and her cult Mars mules in burnt orange. She's not really going to some tropical paradise. But today's hectic schedule at her Noho design studio warrants at least the smallest mental breather. It's two weeks before she will debut her spring-2018 collection, and Comey and her design team are in back-to-back fittings, finalizing the looks. "I thought, This will help me relax," says Comey of her breezy look as we wait for the model to arrive for the fitting.
The 44-year-old fashion designer's mood-induced approach to getting dressed is a core concept rooted in her eponymous womenswear label. With every collection, she's considering where the Rachel Comey woman might be going and how she wants to feel when she gets there. For insight, she's talking to women around her: her friends, her employees, the customers who shop in her Soho store. "If you think about a certain woman, then that woman has other representatives that are also having those same life experiences," she says.
For spring 2018, Comey plays with her idea of a boss woman. When she wants to feel authoritative? A slouchy, tailored black suit. ("I tried to think of what you want to wear when you need your clothes to be doing some work for you.") When she wants to feel a little more off-duty? A Canadian tuxedo, and straw hats that make a statement anywhere. ("For every day, when you're not necessarily having to kick some ass but you want to dress playfully and with some spontaneity.") When she wants to get dressed up, the Rachel Comey way? An organza caftan. And it wouldn't be true to Comey's brand if any of these looks weren't interchangeable for any scenario and idiosyncratically feminine.
The New York fashion designer has gained a cult following that includes Cindy Sherman, Zadie Smith, Miranda July, Rashida Jones, and Greta Gerwig for her off-brand approach to muliebrity. For over a decade, her clothing has become a mainstay in the wardrobes of women who would unimaginatively be labeled as "quirky." But a better descriptor would be "creative women who have things to do, places to go, and can probably recommend you a good book." The Rachel Comey woman opts for clogs over stilettos, wedding jumpsuits over frilly dresses, and knows a good pair of jeans can be worn for any occasion.
Comey has the advantage of creating from a woman's point of view, surprisingly a rarity within the fashion industry, where the top womenswear designers are mostly men. She not only listens to her customers' needs but understands them — as a mother, as a career woman, and as a creative. Her sixteen-year, 100 percent independent streak has been sustained by the power of word of mouth. And Comey isn't afraid to use hers. So it was no surprise when she rallied other designers together and penned a letter to the CFDA in support of the Women's March in January.
Her brand is rooted in a feminism that doesn't need applause or a branded T-shirt but engaging self-aware dialogue. It's why Comey is the fashion designer women need right now.
Rachel Comey grew up outside of Hartford, Connecticut, with an affinity for art and the five cool teenagers who lived next door ("They were the epitome of freedom and teenager life. It was the '70s, so they wore clogs, gold chains, denim, and feathered hair, and they really influenced my nostalgia"). Comey understood from an early age that for her, style was about communication; she wasn't interested in the glamour of the garment but what it said about the person wearing it. She recalls being influenced by women like Gloria Steinem and the gymnast Nadia Comăneci ("She was so strong and resilient").
But Comey didn't immediately put these interests into becoming a womenswear designer. She studied art at the University of Vermont, worked at a graphic-design firm, and started a small women's underwear company. Then, at 26, she moved to New York and took a series of jobs, including one as a costume designer for Off-Off Broadway shows and a consultant gig at Theory (which she was fired from). On the side, she started making woven men's shirts for her then-boyfriend's band, Gogol Bordello. A friend of hers was working with David Bowie, and he wanted one of the shirts. She made him two for $100 each, one of which he wore for an appearance on The Late Show With David Letterman.
She started getting serious about her role as a designer at age 28. She found a now-closed New Jersey factory to produce small batches of her shirts, which she mostly sold in Japan, and she went deeply into debt. She slowly started to introduce womenswear in 2004. Her first fashion show was guerilla-style on the streets of New York in 2001. And for the first six years of her business, she charged credit cards and earned no revenue. It was the introduction of her now-cult wooden-heeled clogs in 2006 that saw her first profit.
When I ask her why she kept going, she tells me, "In retrospect, I have no idea. But I think at the time it was fear of failure and if you don't try, then you don't fail or succeed. And there was a lot to learn. I didn't go to school, I didn't have a mentor, so I had to learn from my mistakes."
Now Comey has added denim (produced in Los Angeles), accessories, and two brick-and-mortar stores on each U.S. coast. And as of 2016, according to a report from Business of Fashion, she was clocking nearly $10 million in annual sales.
One of the most important things Comey learned as she built her business was the power of making decisions that felt instinctive and good rather than "right." It's why she's become a bit of a silent renegade in the design world, born out of both her need to stay authentic to her brand and limited resources. In her sixteen years as a fashion designer, Comey has never done advertising or celebrity endorsements — though, by choice, there are many famous women who wear her clothing — or had investors ("Some people have approached me, but it doesn't ever seem really worth it yet. But maybe down the line," she says). Instead, she grew her company by building a community of devoted consumers.
"I didn't have any access to any celebrity endorsements or Vogue editors that people use to launch a brand. But that's why it just had to grow slowly over time. Word of mouth is strong, and people trust their friends," says Comey.
Staying true to her role as a connector, in 2013, she opted out of having fashion shows in favor of hosting a dinner party, creating an intimate space with intriguing people who also happen to be fans of her clothing. Over a three-course meal, guests converse and view her latest collection and a performance, one year from Tracee Ellis Ross and another year from Justin Vivian Bond.
"Do my customers care what season anything is? I don't think so. I think they are just looking for things to wear when they are looking. Ideally, if you're buying something in June, you should be able to wear it five years later," says Comey. "The seasons and the fashion weeks, I don't know how necessarily useful they are, but having the dinners gave me the opportunity to present my brand in a way that was actually meaningful to me and my team."
The first time I met Rachel Comey was in 2010, and I was in awe of the way she ran her brand. At the time, I was 20 and interning for her casting director Clare Rhodes. Contrary to movies and my experience in past internships, Comey was actually kind and collaborated with her employees. She also called all the shots, cast multiple women of color in her shows, and made time to nurse her newborn baby in between fittings and castings. She was the epitome of a woman fully in command and abiding by her own rules.
"Often, the image that is portrayed in cinema is like the bitchy fashion designer who bosses everyone around. In a way, that was a hurdle to overcome for me. I understood that people wanted this role and they wanted the drama, and I had to find ways to win them over in different ways," says Comey.
When I meet her at her Noho studio, it's clear that her demeanor hasn't changed. Though her staff has grown, it still includes two employees who have been with her for ten years. She now runs an in-house sample factory, which isn't an option for most designers, who have to send off their specs and measurements and wait for the samples to come back.
We're halfway through the fitting with the model, Angel, and Comey is asking her how she feels in the clothing and where she might wear a particular garment. It's a process that Comey goes through each season, trying her clothes on different body types and getting feedback. "Anybody can come here. I see my role as the designer as needing to listen to people and what they say," Comey says. It's why she started to expand some pieces in her line to include sizes for men, after some of her male employees started to wear her clothing. Now she gets their feedback on pieces they would want to wear too.
While Comey's continuing to grow her customer base, she's also thinking about the bigger picture. But like everything else in her world, it has to be on her terms — personal, conservative and authentic.
Tahirah Hairston is an associate editor at Lenny Letter. She lives in Brooklyn and spends all her money on skin-care products. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | | | | | | | | | | Bare-Breasted, Middle-Aged Woman | | | | By Becky Ann Baker | | |
My first hint that something was up was a call from Girls' beautiful, talented costume designer, Jennifer Rogien. This was in the heady days of 2012, before Girls had hit HBO airwaves but after we had begun filming the series.
"Well, I guess we won't need a fitting this week!!!" she said. "What?! Why?!" was my response. My actor's ready insecurity had me thinking that I had been cut from the episode or, worse yet, fired.
"Oh, you haven't seen a script yet? Let me have someone call you." My phone rang seconds later. None of this was good, in my mind.
Six years later, I honestly can't remember if it was Lena or Jenni on the line to break the news. I do remember what they said, though: "Quick question. Is nudity something you'd feel comfortable doing on the show?" Oh my gosh. After hearing that they had written a nude scene for me and Peter Scolari, my TV husband, I quickly agreed; I was so relieved to still be employed in my favorite job ever, playing Hannah Horvath's mother, a disgruntled professor named Loreen.
A sexy, comic shower scene with Peter!! I remember Lena asking me which body parts I'd be willing to share. "Boobs and butt" my reply. I still had decent breasts and an OK butt. Well, I wasn't sure about the butt, since I rarely took a look, but I was willing to show it on faith.
For many, many years, I've listened to my young actress friends discuss nudity clauses in their contracts. Whether you've trained at Juilliard or Western Kentucky University, nudity is typically expected these days. It wasn't the case for me when I came to New York City in the fall of 1975 as a singer/dancer/actress. At that point, the only available auditions for a spectacularly unconnected young actress were the open chorus "cattle calls" that hundreds of aspiring actresses would show up for. I was hired for the out-of-town try-out of what would become Sugar Babies, a musical about the burlesque era. It was a terrific job out of town, but when I was offered two chorus jobs on Broadway at the same time, I took The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, because the role actually had a name, Ruby Rae. I had a character. I wasn't just a chorus girl.
My first ten years in New York were spent onstage. It took quite a while before I climbed out of the chorus and started doing plays. It took even longer to get an agent and begin auditioning for television and film. I was always a character woman with my red hair and freckles, never the ingénue. Lucky for me, that has meant more work the older I get. Now, many years later, here is my first request for television nudity, and I'm well into my 50s! Flattered or insane? I was going to need a sense of humor.
On the day of the shower shoot, our brilliant makeup artist, Joseph Campayno, carefully applied my face makeup and spray-painted my breasts and rear end with such dignity and care that I almost cried. He took all the embarrassment out of the situation.
The first television programming to feature nudity was PBS with anthropological documentaries in 1975. It went fairly unnoticed, and that was more than 35 years before our adventure! The miniseries Roots included partial nudity and created quite a stir, but, by the end of the '80s, mainstream shows like NYPD Blue and Chicago Hope were experimenting with nudity fairly regularly.
I have to say that I wasn't as nervous as I thought I'd be. Maybe it was how comfortable I felt with Peter and how everyone was being supportive beyond words. The scene was so funny, and I've never been someone who was unwilling to go for a great story line or good laugh.
Peter and I approached our comic scene very seriously. Although Lena, who was directing, and various producers and writers were watching the scene unfold on monitors in a secluded place, the only person actually on the set with us during the shoot was our boom operator, Jason, who treated the scene with enormous respect. Parts that needed to be covered were covered, and Peter and I stood in a warm, steaming shower, going at it. Lena, as our daughter, Hannah, walks in at an awkward moment, with a wonderful stunt from Peter involved. The whole scene went well, and everyone survived.
I never did see the final product. It's always been difficult for me to watch myself in anything, even fully clothed.
I wasn't worried about what friends and folks in the business would think, but telling my mother and college-aged daughter was different. They seemed to take it well, and we had a few laughs about it all. My daughter, Willa, told me later that when the episode aired, she was alone in her college dorm room. At her first sight of me in the shower, Willa fled the room. She didn't turn it off or scream. She just fled.
There you go.
Becky Ann Baker is an actress whose career includes six seasons of HBO's Girls, for which she was nominated for two Critics' Choice Awards and one Emmy. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | | | | | | | | | | Don't Let the Bastards Sell Your Genes | | | | By Elisabeth Donnelly | | |
By the time the third doctor walked into the genetic counselor's gray, windowless office, I knew what they were going to do. They were going to measure the circumference of my head.
My counselor had pulled out the measuring tape, and I just talked and talked. "Look, it's going to be big," I said. "I'm Irish Catholic. I have big hair. I wore a size-large men's hat when I was twelve years old. Most relationships have involved boyfriends saying sweetly, 'No, your head isn't that big!'"
For doctor No. 3, I took a different tack as he measured my head. "Have you seen Conan O'Brien?" I asked. "Irish folks have gigantic heads. It's why there's a lot of Irish actors." He measured my head, got the same result as before, 24 inches, and left with a wave.
The day I went to the genetic counselor was the moment of truth, a cap on what had been about two anxious years of doctor after doctor: needle pokes, blood work, mammograms, and the clang-clang-clang of lying on my stomach in the MRI machine, boobs hanging down. All this work, and I never quite got a clean bill of health. I kept having doctor's appointments.
And here at the genetic counselor's office, they had vials of my blood, and they were going to tell me whether I had tested positive or negative for a rare genetic disorder. I had made the mistake earlier of looking it up on Google Images, where the disorder seemed to be inextricably linked to some of the most horrific medical pictures I'd ever seen.
The genetic counselor was short and Russian, with curly blonde hair that looked like ramen noodles. I made a lot of bad jokes. I told her about the horrors of the Internet, and how, if this was a genetic disorder, then that would kind of make me a genetic freak, right? My husband already had type 1 diabetes, which is rare, and maybe I would have something rare, too?
Her flat response, delivered in a gentle Russian deadpan: "In five years we're all going to be genetic freaks."
She was correct. The Human Genome Project, which mapped and identified the DNA that makes up the human genome, was completed in 2003, at a cost of $2.7 billion. Now, after a precipitous drop in the cost to map an individual's genome, our genetic secrets are accessible to anyone willing to pay $200 dollars and spit into a slim plastic tube for 23andMe. Yet the thing is, when you pay money to 23andMe, you're choosing to find out your genetic code. I had stumbled across my genetic story as doctors saw an abnormality and were looking to find an explanation.
It's clear that I am on the front lines of a coming battle. We live in a time where anyone can access their genetic information, but even though the technology is available, it is not something that has penetrated our collective consciousness. But it should, because: we are all genetic freaks. When genetic information is available, who can have access to it, and what decisions can they make about your life? The privacy of this information is something that we need to legally protect for ourselves in the future.There is a bill currently in progress in the House of Representatives, H.R. 1313, that should make every American, every person with a genetic code, nervous. It's otherwise known as the Preserving Employee Wellness Programs Act. And it would empower companies to get employees' and their relatives' genetic information through workplace "wellness programs."This law could lead to a future where people cannot get health insurance because one DNA sequence implies that they could possibly get an expensive disease in the future.
Think of the genome as a 500,000-page novel. There are clearly going to be some spelling errors in that novel. Some of those errors might change the entire meaning of the book: a character might get "billed" instead of "killed," while others are things like "teh" instead of "the." Genetic abnormalities, and we all have them, run along those lines. Right now, they are all considered risks. And companies do not want to pay for the risk that your "teh" misspelling will end up costing them an additional million dollars in health insurance.
It will lead to discrimination against people with minor and major genetic typos. People like me. This bill would be squarely for the sake of corporations and squarely for violating the rights of the American people, all for the sake of concepts that aren't even fully developed yet.
Take my potential genetic abnormality, for example. The counselor gave me the results. They were inconclusive. I hadn't tested a positive yes, and I hadn't tested a definitive no. My genes apparently lay in the great gulf between yes and no, and it would have to be other factors that would push me toward one side of the ledger.
Apparently, it was the size of my head. The reason why my genetic results were inconclusive was that I had one misspelling, not two, so my genes were insufficient to warrant a diagnosis. But my head was in the 95th percentile for my cohort — enough to take me over the edge.
I had had a bout with colon polyps as a kid, which I barely thought about as an adult. Then, when I was in my late 20s, my mother had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and, finally having health insurance, I felt confident in going to the doctor for my first real physical in four years. It all went fine — I was a healthy young woman — until I mentioned my colon. I couldn't even remember much of what it was, or describe it in any detail to the doctor. He furrowed his brow and gave me a recommendation to see another doctor.
I had been hoping I would get the all clear, but each doctor furrowed their brow, sending me onward to the next doctor. When I went to the gastrointestinal oncologist, he requested a colonoscopy. After that, he had a hypothesis: My polyps had been the result of a rare genetic disorder. This meant that I was more susceptible to a variety pack of cancers.
He sent me to the thyroid doctor, where I lay on the examining table, staring up at the photo of Tahiti stapled to the ceiling, and found out that I had a suspiciously large nodule. He sent me to the breast doctor, who had me get a mammogram since — due to my mother's ovarian cancer — I could potentially test positive for the BRCA gene mutation.
Then I ended up at the genetic counselor's office. I was negative for BRCA. I was inconclusive for my genetic disorder. They suggested that my parents take the tests — my mother was able to, since she was already a frequent patient. She tested negative for both. To this day, my dad still hasn't been tested.
When they told my gastrointestinal oncologist about the inconclusive result, he said that's why I had childhood polyps. I didn't fully believe him. The test was inconclusive, but it was a possible reason that the polyps existed, and for him, that was good enough. His previous interest in me, a mystery that he had to solve, dissolved.
Since then, life has gone on as normal. My doctors and I generally operate on a higher level of cautiousness, just in case. I am more likely to eat kale and to prioritize healthiness. It feels like, sometimes, my real health-care canaries are my four siblings, who are quite a bit older than me and are much more likely to battle genetic markers first. Ultimately, whatever my rare genetic disorder is, it's just a memo to be present, to pay attention.
And I hope it stays that way. But if the bill is passed and signed by the president, then people like me, who live under the already uncertain aegis of America's broken health-care system, will have to worry. Privacy is a human right, and protecting the ability of humans to keep their information is an essential part of human dignity. Corporations should not be able to know what your genetic code could augur for the future, and corporations like 23andMe, while selling a product that seems "fun" and "enlightening," also have legal rights to your information.
It's very easy to give up your privacy with the click of an app these days, and the seductive ease of it is exactly why we need to be vigilant. This bill is just one small part of an ongoing concern. We're going have to worry a lot, and for genetic freaks like me, you, and everyone else, it's going to weigh down our enormous heads.
Elisabeth Donnelly is a journalist, screenwriter, and the coauthor (under the name Alex Flynn) of The Misshapes (Polis), a three-book young-adult series about teenage superheroes with lame powers fighting the rise of an autocrat. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | | | | | | | | | | Out of Print: The Metaphysical Touch, by Sylvia Brownrigg | | | | By Lauren LeBlanc | | | |
Identifying a cultural turning point is difficult even with the hindsight of years. In the 1990s, as it transpired, writer Sylvia Brownrigg quietly captured the dramatic social shift wrought by the Internet. Through the story of its two central correspondents, The Metaphysical Touch, published in 1999 and set in 1992, depicts the technological and social impact created by email and bulletin boards. This underappreciated book isn't widely recognized for its role as an early chronicler of the Internet's social influence, but Brownrigg continues to publish smart, evocative fiction that digs into society's conflicts with women's desire and technology (including this summer's Pages for Her).
With her debut novel, however, she strikes a prescient and personal chord. At the time, literary fiction was dominated by the likes of men such as Jonathan Lethem and David Foster Wallace, while the women lived through a heyday of chick lit with Confessions of a Shopaholic, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, and The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing crowding the best-seller list. Contemporary women's fiction skewed toward fantasy, historical romance, or late-twentieth-century material fantasy. This subtle novel, shaped by recent historical events, gained recognition by critics but slipped under the radar of a wide readership. I'd learned about it through a good friend, another recent college grad, who had discovered it in paperback while working her third-shift job at a Border's in Philadelphia. Emailing me about it during our first year in the real world, Katy wrote, "The reaching out of souls through fingers and eyes and dimensions appeals to me. maybe it's because i can talk more openly through this medium than others. maybe it's because i see others doing the same." This world-weary book struck me as an empathetic, long-distance friend, not unlike Katy, my dear friend and e-correspondent.
The Metaphysical Touch focuses on two damaged characters: JD and Pi. Living on separate coasts, each finds comfort in the anonymous, judgment-free space of a bulletin board on suicide.
After a lifetime of depression and recent personal and professional disappointments, JD uses the board as a space to post installments of a "Diery" that stands on its own in a sea of commenters, chiming in about literary deaths. His dark wit drives a narrative conveyed through lengthy journal entries — a series of proto–blog posts? — that spread like wildfire across the Internet. Reaching out with the Internet, JD finds an audience who hangs on his every word. In the wake of the Diery's success, the bulletin board loses its general interest in suicide and becomes a space to respond to and comment on JD's latest missives. While his writing began as just another participant's thoughts about suicide, his narrative quickly became the only one worth following. Unknowingly, he created a blog whose reach exceeded that of the original audience. While it may fill one void, does it create another? The addictive relationship between strangers on the Internet continues to complicate his life.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Pi, a graduate student in philosophy, has suddenly lost her apartment, and with it her cat, as well as all of her belongings — including her dissertation — owing to the 1992 fires that devastated the Berkeley area. Shaken by outliving her livelihood and the stuff that made up her life, Pi retreats to the home of a close friend's relative in Sausalito. Living with a newly separated woman and her young daughter, Pi ignores friends and family and refuses to set foot in bookstores, now haunting reminders of all she's lost. While she knows that her withdrawal from society makes no sense, Pi can't bear to return to the world of possessions and expectations again. During this time, Pi accepts the gift of a modem, and, despite her hesitation, she begins to reconnect with the world outside her head. She stumbles upon JD's Diery after a night of exploration. Not content to remain a passive reader, she finds a way to cajole JD into corresponding directly with her. Each writes cautiously, revealing just enough to entice the other into wanting more. It's a seductive dance that becomes an art.
Brownrigg exposes two people searching to escape themselves who ultimately find empathy and true companionship online. Despite the decades of vicious behavior, catfishing, online dating, and social media that have followed, the Internet remains the perfect place for people in search of a new beginning. Its democratic roots allow anyone the ability to find their voice and be heard. Or, you know, lurk and listen then comment anonymously. It's a relatively safe place to speak out, find yourself, or, at the very least, gain a sense of community.
Looking back, 1999 can be seen as the turning point of technology-related hype and hysteria: Y2K loomed over the new century, Internet access was in full swing, amazon.com was four years old, and Time Warner was about to merge with America Online. At this point, almost everyone was familiar with email, but we were still years away from the extensive digital archives and social networking we have today. While the fabric of our social interactions was beginning to change, the majority of us couldn't predict exactly how connectivity would spread invasively. Brownrigg's novel straddles the time between our current streaming moment and a pre-Internet world, when we weren't hopelessly connected all the time. Like JD, we could disappear. Like Pi, we could lose our libraries and our homes. In that time, we had to sit with our own thoughts and feel the weight of what it meant to be lost.
While Brownrigg doesn't speculate about the extent of the Internet's influence, she illuminates how the Internet helped us better understand ourselves through both its benefits as well as its limitations. In the wake of her correspondence with JD, prepared to join the world again, Pi reflects, "It is so strange when you shatter your own mythologies." It can take the act of writing a stranger, then forging a bond based on faith, to restore one's sense of self and place in the world. Through knowing others, we come to truly know ourselves.
Lauren LeBlanc is an independent book editor and writer, as well as a senior editor at Guernica magazine. A native New Orleanian, she lives in Brooklyn with her family. Follow her on Twitter at @lequincampe. | | | | | | | | | | | | Advertisement | | | | | | | | | | | Following in a Sociopathic Parent's Path | | | | By Jasmin Rosemberg | | |
I was a teenager when my father's half-sister first appeared in our lives.
My uncle had been sorting through some paperwork at his parents' home in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, following the death of his father — my grandfather — who was born in Transylvania, Romania (like Dracula), and who was easily one of the most frightening men I'd ever met. Isadore Rosemberg always seemed to be seething, angry at both everything and nothing at once, exhaling smoke and building steam like a bull that at any moment might charge.
Of course, I'd also heard my father's horror stories: of how in his teens, my grandfather would discipline his five children by sticking their hands into the stove flame, or by forcing my father, his eldest (who longed for nothing more than his father's approval but whose achievements were never enough to garner any praise), to sit naked on a stool in castrated ridicule, awaiting the beating he'd eventually receive hours later.
But most egregious was the evidence my uncle discovered that day, which seemed to suggest that my grandfather had taken up with a Mexican woman in Texas during a prolonged absence and had had another child. A now-woman, named Jackie. Jackie Rosemberg, whom my father invited into our home and into our family one evening, and whose face, despite her earnest attempts at enthusiasm, revealed her underlying disappointment, her resentment, her pain.
I wondered if those feelings ever went away, after being wounded by a parent. If the hurt is something you eventually move on from, something you learn how to hide. Or if, instead, it's something that forever blocks the brightness of your reality, like a permanent, gray-tinting shade, like a broken vase whose pieces you might be able to glue back together but whose deep-rooted cracks you will always see.
"He left when I was young, and we never heard from him again," Jackie said. "I called up his house a few times, but your mother always hung up. I think she knew."
"Well, we're here if you ever need anything," my father told his newfound sibling. "We're family. Family is most important." It was what he had always preached, even if he had an unusual way of showing it.
My father had grown up to become a fierce and frighteningly authoritative figure in the New York City education world, who cared a great deal about what other people thought of him, and, consequently, what they thought about me, his eldest child. In his eyes — a girl who had graduated as middle-school salutatorian, had been cheerleading captain, and had attended an Ivy League college — could never be pretty, skinny, Stepford-looking, or show-dog-like enough.
So, then, I spent my teens and twenties seeking out supercilious men in nightclubs. I kept a list of all the guys I had successfully charmed and made out with, an irrefutable number that represented physical proof of my worth and power and desirability and invincibility. Proof that even though my stringent father had never given me credit for anything, and never ceased to cite some trivial shortcoming (a pimple, an extra pound, a score of 99 rather than 100), I was worthy of love; even if just for a matter of minutes, this many people thought I was perfect, or maybe just good enough.
Seeking out these narcissistic, devious men who reminded me of my father was like playing with fire. And one night, after I accepted a drink from a particularly narcissistic, devious stranger at a Hollywood nightclub, I woke up naked and sore and emotionally eviscerated (the man was later arrested for drugging and raping others).
So at 29, wrought by PTSD and a damage that felt indelibly etched across my forehead, I moved back to our family's brownstone in Park Slope, Brooklyn, where my father, my role model of perfection and a community hero, would be able to fix everything.
First came the Jets sweatshirt — which a chipper, boy-like version of my father wore home from his long-held "card game" one night. Next came the fancy David Yurman bracelet, which he claimed to have snagged at a steal price on eBay. Finally, one day my younger sister borrowed his laptop and found his Ashley Madison profile.
That's when my sister, a lawyer, and I, a reporter, set about the biggest investigation of our careers: that of our own lives.
I was 30 years old when I discovered that my father — also a notorious "womanizer" with whom women didn't want to be left behind closed doors — had been conducting decades of affairs with a whole brigade of other women. That the Maltese we often dog-sat for actually belonged to an eight-year mistress, a Mexican woman from Texas whom my father had housed blocks away and employed, and with whom he had even established an anniversary date. "227" (February 27) was the apt notation he used for her in his datebook, where she kept the company of myriad other paramours, similarly represented by numeric codes — numbers that to him perhaps served as some sort of physical proof of his worth and power and desirability and invisibility. I feared I knew exactly what this need felt like.
I had my father's face (not to mention a freakishly slow heart rate, affinity for risk-taking, and other consistencies with sociopathy, which children reared by the affected parent — nature plus nurture — are at risk of); what if I possessed the rest of him? What if I'd inherited his inability to commit, his desire to win and dominate other people rather than connect, his incapacity to truly feel and love? Like my dad and his own father, I'd been motivated by a father who I had found terrifying but also emulated. I'd strived for the control I never had and to prove I could be equally powerful. Most frightening of all, I'd been following in the destructively promiscuous path of my father's, just as he'd most eerily followed in the path of his own father's.
"I actually did my dissertation on attachment patterns across three generations," said the therapist I enlisted after making my discoveries. "And I wouldn't even be in this business if I believed that trauma patterns weren't changeable."
I wish I could claim that faulty choices, perilous power struggles, and prohibitive fear with men didn't follow. Still, I'm striving to avoid (rather than purposely engage) anyone who appears haughty, excitingly edgy, impossibly shiny, and too familiar. I'm embracing the imperfections that my father berated but which make me beautifully human. I'm learning what a healthy, loving male-female relationship even is.
I interact with my father on a peripheral level, see him at weddings and funerals — though the man who stands before me is a stranger. My former hero is now the most dishonest person I've ever known, the type of partner I pray I'll never be unlucky enough to meet.
I can attest that the wounds inflicted by a sociopathic parent go deep and may extend far, across many generations. But while my father's deceits tore me open wide and dismantled my world — leaving lingering disappointment, resentment, and pain — deep down I know that these discoveries quite possibly saved me.
Jasmin Rosemberg (@jasminrosemberg), a former editor at Variety and columnist for the New York Post, is the author of the novel How the Other Half Hamptons (Hachette Book Group). She's working on a memoir, from which this essay is drawn. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
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