Monday, April 6, 2009

Dooce Is on the Loose

Dooce is Heather Armstrong, best known as the first blogger to be fired for blogging. But hey, it turned out pretty good for her: Her personal blog is so popular that now it supports her whole family. And now she's out on the road on the last leg of her book tour to promote her blog-based book, It Sucked and Then I Cried. The catch? She's seven months pregnant and hurtling toward immobility.

Heather is controversial--no doubt about it. She's got a legion of haters who have polluted her book's Amazon page with tags like "read blog for free," "people exploiting their children for money," and "get over yourself." But I love Heather because she is honest, hilarious, and brave. I am going to buy this book because I, too, had a less-than-blissful post-partum emotional experience. I never threw a milk jug at my husband's head, but don't think I didn't think about it.

As to the comments that the book is nothing more than a rehash of the blog, that's okay with me because I have only recently discovered her. I have some catching up to do, and I don't want to sit in front of my computer to do it. Besides, whatever happened to supporting artists who entertain and enlighten us? If we continue to expect to get all our content for free, eventually it won't be there.

Also, look for Heather on Oprah today. She wasn't in the studio, but she did join the conversation via Skype. The book already made the NYT best-seller list. Today's appearance won't hurt its ranking a bit.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with your post - I am a big fan of Dooce and am looking forward to reading her in book form, as I also have a lot of catching up to do and would rather not spend it in front of the screen. I wish I'd read this in time to catch her on Oprah!