A search term that led someone to my blog yesterday.

What is with diana athill? did she have any friendships with women

I’m sorry, I just thought it was funny that someone seemed so passionately aggravated by the 94-year-old British editor and memoirist’s lack of female friends.

What is with it? I don’t know; I’ve read two of her books, Stet and Instead of a Letter, and haven’t noticed it (more pronouncedly, she had very few friends in general, just acquaintances and love affairs). I do think Athill had/has ADHD, and women with ADHD have more male friends, in my limited anecdotal experience. But maybe it’s just because Diana Athill is a badass who was too busy editing books (by Philip Roth, Norman Mailer, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Rhys and V.S. Naipaul, to name a few) and having love affairs. Geez.

(thank’s for asking, I guess)