Update: Vanity Fair Published My Story
Dear all,
I wanted to update you guys on recent goings-on. Today, a profile I wrote about the greatest muse in American literary history, Augusta Britt, has been published by Vanity Fair. A little background. Augusta Britt was the secret muse of Cormac McCarthy for half a century and entrusted me a year and a half ago to tell her story. As you’ll see in the piece, her influence spans ten of McCarthy’s books and even more characters. Considering both the breadth and depth of influence on McCarthy’s novels, as a muse she is second only to the platonic form. Indeed, there is something deific about her. Her name, even, is an honorific, and it has been the greatest honor of my life to know it. We first made contact on this Cormac McCarthy essay I published to Substack on April 1st, 2023. It’s been the greatest April Fools gift I could have ever hoped for.
I want to thank Benjamin Anastas, a dear friend and great novelist without whom I would not have made contact with Vanity Fair. (Ben has a fantastic Substack as well, focusing at the moment on Robert Musil’s magnum opus The Man Without Qualities.) I must also thank Lawrence Hecker, my most generous and steadfast entertainment lawyer. Thank you as well to Daniel Kile, my incredible editor on this piece, and Radhika Jones. Vanity Fair was the perfect home for this story, and it was an absolute dream to work with them, the best editors imaginable. Again, I can only compare them to the idealized figures journalists daydream about. Would that all writers were so lucky!
Finally, and above all, I must thank Augusta Britt, one of the best humans I’ve ever met, and to whom I owe the most gratitude. I don’t know why, but I was lucky enough to be found by her on April Fools Day. Everything since then has felt foolishly kismet. Without Augusta, I would be fiddling away at this Substack, going nowhere fast. All that I do from now on, I owe to her and dedicate eternally. Thank you, Lady A. You are a beautiful human.
Stay tuned for more pieces here on Barney’s Rubble. I will be bringing you much more content in the coming months. Thank you all for reading and for your support.
All my very best,
Vincenzo Barney
Mesmerizing read that explores the complexities of desire and emotional dependency. Beyond the undeniable power imbalances, this story soars for its descriptions of landscapes and longings. Thank you for this still unfinished and fascinating story of survival.
I just read the story in Vanity Fair and I found it fascinating, and still I’m surprised that I’m surprised by all the hate you’ve received. I’m a champion of women and girls against sexual abuse, but I don’t think things can always be reduced to their simplest denominator. McCarthy was a great writer and an imperfect person, but I take Augusta Britt at her word that she would have died—and soon—if he hadn’t saved her. It’s clear they were the love of each other’s lives—that has to count for something. She strikes me as a very admirable woman, one who has persevered through horrible things that would have defeated a person of lesser backbone. She seems to me to be kind of person about whom Joan Didion was thinking when she wrote her famous essay “On Self Respect,” a person who knows exactly who she is and who accepts responsibility for who she is and what she does and has done. I’m sorry that some readers are reacting so negatively to these revelations and aren’t able to treat them with the complexity and nuance they deserve.