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Writing in today's CityBeat, Catherine Seipp gives the recent best-selling novel by famously ex-LAT writer Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez a read and likes it. She also revisits the much-chronicled flameout of Valdes-Rodriguez' career at the Times and sounds some sympathetic notes, acknowledging what is often overlooked: the woman is talented.
I also realized that there may have been something else besides the lurid nuttiness of Valdes-Rodriguez’s career implosion that fascinated media rubberneckers: She has a supreme gift for narrative drive. Long, angry rants about the office normally become tedious very quickly, but that notorious 3,400-word screed was riveting all the way through. Equally riveting was a second, lesser known letter – 3,200 words this time – that an unemployed Valdes-Rodriguez sent a year later to Jim Romenesko’s virtual media bulletin board, apologizing for the first one and begging to be taken back into journalism.
The aforementioned rants and letters are archived here. By the way, Seipp has also taped a commentary on the new TV show "The O.C." for Day to Day on National Public Radio.