grounds of turpitude

A few weeks ago Sebastian Horsley was headed to the U.S. to begin a media tour for his recently published memoir Dandy in the Underworld, in which he “chronicles his life as an artist, a junkie and a self-professed dandy. . . . painting himself as a misogynist, a sexual deviant and a narcissist.” [Publisher's Weekly] He was questioned by U.S. officials for eight hours at Liberty International Airport in Newark, New Jersey before being sent back to England.

Lucille Cirillo, a spokeswoman for the New York office of United States Customs and Border Protection. . . in an e-mail message, said that under a waiver program that allows British citizens to enter the United States without a visa, “travelers who have been convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude (which includes controlled-substance violations) or admit to previously having a drug addiction are not admissible.” [NY Times]

The “utterly appalling” nature of this denial is noted by the writer at the powerofnarrative.blogspot.com:

And now you are “not admissible” if you have been convicted of a “crime involving moral turpitude” — even if you have already suffered whatever penalty might have been imposed and are now free, although you are not free to enter the United States — or if you “admit to previously having a drug addiction.” Obviously, you should lie about it.

But obviously, if you’ve written a book about said turpitude, it becomes more difficult to lie, even, apparently, for a man who has gone on record saying, “It’s better to be quotable than honest.”

The comments on the Boing Boing post express some of the confusion and anxiety I feel about this incident, which seems like an egregious clamp down on personal expression.

Strangely, even with the added publicity and notoriety–usually a winning combination–the book didn’t sell more than 1,000 copies, tho new efforts to bring Horsley back to the U.S. might boost those numbers (he has visited the U.S. several times before).

I haven’t read the book (yet?) but neither the excerpt on Amazon nor the reading on NPR whet my interest as much as the initial story of his denial. I’m tempted to buy it anyway. Would you?

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