I don’t know how many of you are following the story of the feud between author Michael Crichton and Washington political columnist Michael Crowley.  Back in March, Crowley wrote a piece that was highly critical of Crichton and his politics. 

Now Crichton has a new thriller out called NEXT, and as the New York Times notes, there are some rather obvious similarities between Crichton’s real-life arch-nemesis Crowely and an unsavory fictional character in his book:

“On Page 227 Mr. Crichton writes: “Alex Burnet was in the middle of the most difficult trial of her career, a rape case involving the sexual assault of a two-year-old boy in Malibu. The defendant, thirty-year-old Mick Crowley, was a Washington-based political columnist who was visiting his sister-in-law when he experienced an overwhelming urge to have anal sex with her young son, still in diapers.”

Mick Crowley is described as a “wealthy, spoiled Yale graduate” with a small penis that nonetheless “caused significant tears to the toddler’s rectum.”

Mr. Crowley writes that Mr. Crichton’s Mick Crowley not only has a similar name but is also a graduate of Yale and a Washington political journalist.”

The reason I found this whole episode so amusing is that not only did Mr. Crichton portray Crowley as a child-rapist, he also lobbed the worst insult a guy can hurl  at another man. 

He gave him a small penis.

As the NY Times article points out, this particular insult  actually has a bit of history in the literary world.  Call it the “small penis rule.”  According to libel lawyer Leon Friedman, it’s a way to avoid defamation lawsuits. As he explains:  “No male is going to come forward and say, ‘That character with a very small penis — that’s me!’ ” 

Still, it’s clear to Mr. Crowley (and to anyone else who reads that passage in the book) that Crichton was, indeed, talking about him.   

I completely understand Crichton’s impulse to attack a critic by making him a nasty fictional character.  I’ve even done it myself.  One reviewer wrote such a breath-takingly awful review of HARVEST that in a later book, I created a psychopathic teenage character with his name.  There were absolutely no similarities between the reviewer and the character, and I changed the spelling, but it still gave me a little thrill to do it.

But give a character a small penis?   Now, that’s just silly. That’s stooping to the level of little boys in a schoolyard.  And as a woman, I don’t get the obsession men have with their penises.  Or with other men’s penises.  I think I share the same philosophy that other women have on this issue: it’s not the size that matters but what a man does with it.

What this episode tells me is that even a writer as incredibly successful as Michael Crichton feels the sting of criticism, and can’t resist the urge to lash back.  Maybe he came off looking terribly thin-skinned in the process.  But he’s human, and so is every other writer, no matter how successful they are.