I was infuriated, too, when I read that essay. But then I read reviews of the book, which said that the first third is an account of Kim growing up as an immigrant in the US. I'm thinking, that might have something to do with why the book is being categorized as a memoir.
I think "money" is a sufficient reason to explain why the publisher marketed it the way they did.
I wonder how many of the people she mentioned at book readings, etc., were paid agents of the North Korean state. Who gets up at a book reading and says "I know someone who went to North Korea and they said it isn't that bad"? We all know it's that bad. It was a plot point on 30 Rock.
"My book isn't being marketed as I would prefer" is slightly, but not very much, more sympathetic than "my book isn't being reviewed as I would prefer."
["Death of the author" joke.]
You're supposed to follow the reviewer to their house before thinking better of confronting them and then write up your stalking as a think piece.
2 I know someone who went there and said it isn't that bad. I chalked it up to a combination of naivete and careful shepherding on the part of the North Koreans.
3: Dude, she went undercover in North Korea for 6 months, and they're marketing it as a journey of self-discovery.
"At times it seems like Das Kapitol is trying to describe a political and economic theory, but that detracts from the romantic comedy that author is supposed to have written."
2.2: just "idiots" is probably enough to explain it. The U.S. is a big place, even if 999,999 of every million people know what North Korea is like, that still leaves 300 who don't. Or don't care. Or reckon that anywhere the US government hates so much must be nice.
7: it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must always be part of a system which tends to immiserate the working class.
Shit, Kim is young and female and not white and saying nasty things about communist dictators. bob probably turned up to heckle.
He only heckles anime adaptions.
I read the book a while ago (somebody gave it to my mom for Christmas, last year or the one before- way before this article) and it didn't read like a memoir. It read similarly to the recently-linked prison guard gig story. And was at approximately the same level of deception- Kim didn't lie, exactly; she just didn't tell anyone what her long-term plan was.
Clearly the publishers' main idea about marketing was money, but also clearly that idea was wrong, sexist, and racist.
From an article in today's Guardian: Earlier this week, a New Hampshire woman asked Trump at one of his rallies whether, as president, he would replace Transportation Security Administration workers who wear "heebeejabbies" ....
Well, they didn't get the name quite right but you're now transatlanticly famous!
12: "Sexist for money. Racist for free."