Allegations that he groomed several former students at Lusher Middle School for sexual encounters when they were of age continue to mount for star literary biographer Blake Bailey, and the number of women accusing him of rape has doubled, with a fresh rape claim against him landing on the front page of The New York Times.
In an interview with The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate, one of his former eighth-grade English students recounted Thursday that he offered himself up as her writing mentor, even leaving a note in her yearbook that the journal he assigned her to keep was one of few he would miss reading.
The publisher of a bestselling biography about writer Philip Roth is pausing its promotion and shipping of the book after the former Lusher Mi…
The woman, who spoke for the record on condition of anonymity, said Bailey kept in touch with her after she graduated from Lusher Middle in 2000 and he had moved away to pursue a career in writing. She said he was on a return visit to New Orleans and had invited her to lunch when he convinced her to accompany him to his hotel room because he needed to get something. Once there, he initiated sex, said the former Lusher student, who permitted the newspaper to share her name with Bailey and his attorney to request comment.
The woman said she didn’t rebuff Bailey but said that was because she was overwhelmed at how quickly her former teacher had changed the nature of their encounter.
“It was so fast,” she said. “I remember being grossed out.”
The ex-student said she doesn’t remember the exact date, but when she spoke with Bailey later, he insisted he had waited until she had reached the age of consent, which in Louisiana is 17. The former student turned 17 in late 2003. That would make her younger at the time of the encounter than any of the other women who have come forward thus far.
Blake Bailey, a celebrated literary biographer, has come under fire this week due to several accusations of sexual misconduct stemming from th…
She said her case appears to be a drastic example of what she called Bailey’s “bait and wait” modus operandi: gain the lasting trust of certain students in his classroom, meet with them when they were older, and then initiate sex.
Within the last 10 years, but long before any allegations about Bailey were public, the woman disclosed what happened with Bailey to a friend and former Lusher classmate named Marie Kerrin, Kerrin said in a separate interview. The woman said she didn’t feel comfortable sharing her story more widely until this week, when three other former Lusher students whom Bailey taught in the 1990s went public with eerily similar claims.
One of those three women, Eve Crawford Peyton, accused Bailey of raping her. The other two stopped short of describing their encounters as rape, but said that Bailey moved quickly and unduly took advantage of his role as a trusted mentor. Yet another former Bailey student at Lusher, Elisha Diamond, said she fled after meeting him at a bar during her freshman year in college when he slid his hand up her thigh following a series of suggestive remarks.
“I am speaking out because I see now he is a serial predator, and I wonder if there are others,” said the former student who spoke out against Bailey most recently.
Bailey, who now is 57 and lives in Virginia, and his attorney in New Orleans, Billy Gibbens, declined to comment on the latest allegation. Earlier this week, In response to a request for comment on the allegations from Peyton, Diamond and the two others who spoke out previously, Gibbens said it was “absurd to suggest that (Bailey) was grooming students for anticipated encounters as adults many years later.”
Gibbens’ prepared statement added: “The allegations … are false, hurtful descriptions of conduct between adults. Mr. Bailey has never treated a woman inappropriately and has never forced himself on a woman.”
Bailey’s past at Lusher — where he taught for about eight years beginning in 1992 — came under scrutiny as he was enjoying critical and commercial success for his newly released 900-page biography on writer Philip Roth. The women speaking out against him said it was difficult for them to watch as his reputation steadily rose in the wake of earlier successful biographies of authors John Cheever, Richard Yates and Charles Jackson.
The reaction to their coming forward was swift. The Roth biography’s publisher, W.W. Norton and Company, announced Wednesday that it was pausing its promotion and shipping of the book. And, days before that, Bailey’s literary agency — the Story Factory — fired him as a client.
Meanwhile, in an article in Thursday’s New York Times, a publishing executive named Valentina Rice accused Bailey of raping her in 2015.
A celebrated literary biographer who taught eighth-grade English at New Orleans’ Lusher Middle School in the 1990s is now facing accusations t…
Rice alleged that Bailey forced himself on her even as she repeatedly said “no” and “stop” while they were both overnight guests at the New Jersey home of a Times book critic. In around 2018, prompted by the #MeToo movement, Rice used an email address under a pseudonym to write to Norton’s president and accused Bailey of rape, she told the Times.
The Times reported that, in response, Bailey wrote an email to Rice, saying his publisher had forwarded him her note.
In that email, Bailey denied ever having “nonconsensual sex of any kind, with anybody, ever” and pledged to defend his “reputation and livelihood” if necessary. The Times reported that he also told Rice “such a rumor” would “destroy” his adoring wife and daughter.
Before Rice’s story became public, at least two of the former Lusher students who spoke out against Bailey said he had asked them to consider how hurtful it would be to his wife and daughter if they publicly detailed their experiences.
According to The Times, Bailey issued a statement to that outlet’s reporters calling Rice’s allegations “categorically false and libelous.”
Rice didn’t respond to messages from this newspaper. Regarding The Times’ reporting, a Norton spokesperson issued a statement saying the publisher took the allegations from Rice “very seriously” while respecting the accuser’s “request for a guarantee of anonymity.”
Bailey “categorically denied” the Rice accusations when questioned, said Norton’s statement. Norton’s statement said the publisher was also “aware” that the Rice allegations had been sent to other parties, including “a reporter for The New York Times, a news organization that was well-equipped to look into” the matter.
Lusher leaders, meanwhile, have faced questions from alumni — some posted on social media — about whether the school knew previously about the types of relationships Bailey was cultivating with his students.
Such questions prompted former Bailey student Jennifer Lee to go public about a complaint her mother filed against him after they say he made an off-color remark about an ankle bracelet Lee wore to Lusher one day.
Bailey said something to the effect that people living in the Renaissance knew a woman was a prostitute if she wore an ankle bracelet, according to Lee. After Lee’s mother, Dianne Massimini, learned of the comment, she complained to Lusher, which set up a meeting among the mom, daughter, Bailey and Lusher’s then-principal, Kathy Riedlinger.
Bailey was forced to apologize, Lee and Massimini recalled.
Asked about Lee and Massimini’s recollections Thursday, a Lusher spokesperson issued a statement Thursday saying the school “has no record of any complaint against Mr. Bailey involving alleged inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature on his part during his time (there) in the 1990s.”
Riedlinger, the statement added, “has no recollection of any complaint of sexual impropriety regarding Mr. Bailey while he was employed at Lusher … while she was principal.”
