Shalom, Jerome

Since Dallas Morning News management refused to publish book critic Jerome Weeks’ farewell column last week–he was among the 111 who took the paper’s buyout, about which we can find little else to say at this late date–it has been posted today on Critical Mass, billed as “the blog of the national book critics circle board of directors.” There’s little that could be considered incendiary in Weeks’ adios. About the closest he comes to kicking his bosses in the balls is when he writes, “Book culture may seem a dwindling, quaint endeavor to advertisers in mad pursuit of illiterate teens and at a time when arts coverage in general is getting dumped or fragmented into a million Web sites.” But there’s no mention of Belo’s hitmen by name, so why the quashing?

Also, for the record, the post from (former?) DMN books section contributor John Freeman says none of the paper’s writers who took the buyout have had farewell columns appear in print, which isn’t technically accurate. On Friday, in the Guide, food critic Dotty Griffith got to say her goodbyes. –Robert Wilonsky