Blake Bailey's publisher hits 'pause' on shipping and promotion of book amid allegations

Publisher W.W. Norton is hitting pause on "Philip Roth: The Biography" in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations made against author Blake Bailey by several women who met him when he was their eighth-grade honors English teacher.

"These allegations are serious," the publisher said in a statement Wednesday. "In light of them, we have decided to pause the shipping and promotion of 'Philip Roth: The Biography,' pending any further information that may emerge."

Book promotion can include, among other things, outreach efforts to solicit book reviews or interviews with authors.

The biography, which was released April 6, debuted at No. 12 on the April 25 New York Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list and No. 8 on the Los Angeles Times nonfiction list.

"It is only thanks to Bailey ... that I closed this book and wondered how long it would take to get the rotten flavor of [Philip Roth] out of my mouth," Stephen Metcalf wrote in the Los Angeles Times' review of the book, which tracks the life of the author of "American Pastoral," "Portnoy's Complaint" and more.

The allegations against Bailey surfaced Sunday in comments on a literary blog; on Tuesday, the New Orleans Advocate/Times-Picayune and the L.A. Times published stories about the writer's alleged grooming of female students when he was a teacher at the Lusher School in Louisiana and his sexual pursuit of some of them when they were in early adulthood.

Bailey was dropped by his agency, the Story Factory, on Sunday afternoon.

Billy Gibbens, Bailey's attorney, dismissed the allegations as "false," "scurrilous" and "anonymous," and said, “We are baffled that the Story Factory would have acted on such unreliable, demonstrably false information without bothering to consult Mr. Bailey, and we are considering all of Mr. Bailey’s legal options related to these defamatory comments."

The Times spoke with former students of Bailey's who detailed the alleged behavior. One woman, Eve Peyton, wrote an open letter about the situation.

“These stories have been whispered about for decades or shared over a glass of wine by former students, who all thought they were the only ones,” Peyton wrote, in part. “His behavior was something of an open secret, and it absolutely followed a pattern and was textbook grooming, but no one ever said anything, Even those of us hurt by him still loved him on some level. He was supposed to be our mentor. In many ways, he was. And then he used our trust in him against us in the cruelest and most intimate way possible.”

Jessie Wightkin Gelini told The Times she had witnessed Bailey “grooming” her and other girls, in behavior allegedly including serenading his “class pets,” giving them cutesy nicknames, getting too close to them and touching them.

Bailey himself told The Times via email Tuesday morning that "the allegations are totally false.” His attorney later denied both Gelini's and Peyton's accounts.

For the record:
10:42 AM, Apr. 23, 2021: An earlier version of this article said the Story Factory cut ties with Blake Bailey on Monday. In fact, the agency dropped him as a client Sunday afternoon.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.