Renata Adler had already been under heavy fire for weeks before anyone even noticed her statement, in her book "Gone: The Last Days of the New Yorker," that she'd once declined to review the autobiography of Watergate icon Judge John Sirica because he was "a corrupt, incompetent, and dishonest figure, with a close connection to Senator Joseph McCarthy and clear ties to organized crime."

The discovery revivified the controversy kicked up by the book, which is an angry cri de coeur arguing that the fabled magazine had passed from a literary showcase to a trendy slick with fashion coverage and celebrity profiles. "Gone" got generally favorable reviews in the rest of the country, but reviews in New York -- many of them written by people associated with the New Yorker, such as one by former editor Bob Gottlieb -- were generally scathing.

None of them, however, mentioned the Sirica comment. It wasn't until a month later that Sirica's son, Jack, a reporter for Newsday, called it to everyone's attention by faxing a letter to Adler's publisher, Simon & Schuster -- and distributing copies to the press -- that demanded Adler provide either a retraction or "any evidence whatsoever."

It was a demand that the New York Times soon endorsed in an editorial, two days after a piece by Times reporter Felicity Barringer recounted a stormy interview with Adler. Barringer asked Adler to provide support for the statement about Sirica, and Adler declined to do so, saying she intended to write her own account of the matter at a later date. Barringer wrote that when she'd asked Adler, "Why wait months to publish your evidence?" Adler had called the question "deeply silly." Adler calls the Times' coverage of her book "institutional carpet bombing" -- negative articles about her in nearly every section of the paper, including Arts, the Sunday Book Review and Sunday Magazine, Business/Financial and the Week in Review. Adler also noted that Barringer asked Bob Woodward to comment on the Sirica charge, even though Adler had famously trashed his volume "The Brethren" on the front page of the Times Sunday Book review; and that the Times' strongly worded editorial page indictment of Adler's ethics was written by Eleanor Randolph, whom Adler had cited for some inaccurate reporting in "Gone."

Adler wrote a letter to the editor protesting that she was being ganged up on ("The Times has now attacked my 'irritable little book' no fewer than six times -- in its Sunday and daily papers, its Letters column, its Arts, Media, Editorial and Business sections. The prose has been colorful: 'off-hand evisceration of various literati,' 'drive-by assault,' 'Iago,' 'irresponsible,' 'despicable,' and so forth. I wonder what the Sports section will say"), that conflicts of interest were being ignored and that Barringer had misquoted her.

However, Times executive editor Joe Lelyveld refused to run it, telling Adler he had decided it was time to "give the matter a rest." Two days later, the Times ran an item on the clash in the Sunday edition's Week in Review.

Adler was once a star writer for the Times herself, and wrote on and off for the New Yorker starting in 1963. She wrote speeches for the Nixon impeachment inquiry of the House Judiciary Committee, and as a reporter she covered Selma and the Six Day War, and was one of the first female journalists in Vietnam. But she has felt a collegial chill for her blunt opinions before -- her previous most famous single sentence was one in which she said film reviews by her New Yorker colleague Pauline Kael were "piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless," because Kael was harsh on independent filmmakers. And in her book, "Reckless Disregard," Adler rather conclusively showed that esteemed news organizations CBS and Time magazine had been somewhat less than fair -- or honest -- in stories about Gen. William Westmoreland and Ariel Sharon, respectively.

Still, that book got rave reviews -- including one in the Times -- as did Adler's three previous books. (Michiko Kakutani called her novel "Pitch Dark" a work of "magic.") Just last year, she won a Washington Monthly Journalism Award for her blistering critique of the Starr Report, which appeared in Vanity Fair.

In the current issue of Harper's magazine, Adler defends the Sirica comment and discusses the Times coverage of it. But the roots of the current controversy -- and Adler's feud with the Times -- seem to go back further than that.

In a lengthy interview, she discussed her embattled year so far, and proved herself to be as unfiltered in real life as in her writing.

Let's start at the beginning: What made you decide to write "Gone"?

Well ... it was time, it was time. What happened at the New Yorker seemed such a waste. There were things that could have been done. There weren't many people who were placed to do them, but for example, if you take Bob Gottlieb -- Tina Brown, I mean Tina Brown is Tina Brown, but Bob Gottlieb, there was something else he could have done. But he was too busy talking about how loved he was. So, I thought that was it. I mean, it wasn't something in a day, but it was a loss.

A loss you document, at least partly, by portraying the changing character of staffers there, including some absolutely devastating characterizations -- in particular, you unload on Adam Gopnik.

I do. People characterized that as "cruel," and that surprises me. Because if you look at it, physically, it's not cruel. I mean, there's no deformity.

What about describing him as "meaching"?

Well, he was meaching!

Maya Angelou reads from "The Heart of a Woman"