Ayelet Waldman vs. Katie Roiphe: A Twitter Battle With No Winners

Katie Roiphe better watch her step. Ayelet Waldman does not take even indirect criticism lightly when it involves her husband (you know, the amazing writer and lover, Michael Chabon).

As part of the new tradition of referencing famous husbands through twitter, Ms. Waldman is using the medium to air her grievances against Ms. Roiphe.

"I am so BORED with Katie Roiphe's 'I like the sexist drunk writers' bullshit. She happily trashes my husband, but guess what bitch?... He not only writes rings and rings and rings around you, but the same rings around your drunken literary love objects," tweeted ayeletw.

The occasion for the outburst was Katie Roiphe's essay in the New York Times style section yesterday. The essay was about her mother, Anne Roiphe's, new memoir Art and Madness: A Memoir of Lust Without Reason.

Although Katie Roiphe does not actually mention Chabon this time, she did last December when she made the case for the masculinity of midcentury Great Male Writers rather than the sensitivity of the current crop of writers who are often named Jonathan.

Kate Roiphe first became famous, and controversial, when she questioned the idea of date rape in the politically correct 1990's. Anne Roiphe's new book is about a time when it was more realistic for a woman with literary aspirations to type her husband's manuscripts than her own. Ayelet Waldman, an author in her own right, is most well-known for a modern love columnabout how she is more committed to her husband than her children.

"I do not like it when people insult those I love," explained Ms. Waldman at the end of her twitter rant last night, or as she tweeted today, it is "the urge to go crazy on the asses of your spouse's detractors."