cat person

Idk if that is definitely what happened, and even if it did I'm not sure Roupenian can be held responsible, but it did affect him enough to hold onto his old phone and keep reviewing their texts as treeship said, and his reaction to the story seemed significant enough to his friend to bring up to Nowicki right in their first conversations after his death.xp That is significantly more than what your first post said tbf.

i already said i cancelled the podcast! i don't put any value in the second thing though, they'd been talking for an hour of course the story that binds them is gonna come up

Ha OK I read more sarcasm in that comment than you may have intended.

The writer makes a point of how all these friends/acquaintances etc contacted her with IS THIS YOU but the thing is, I bet those same conversations were happening everywhere. Lots of young women receiving IS THIS YOU texts from their friends bc this story is so fucking common. I worked in a big supermarket from 15-18 and the social life was huge and it was extremely common for male managers in their 30s to be dating teen girls who worked there. The essay writer acknowledges friends were weirded out by the age gap but she doesn’t address it directly at all.

I've been picturing Buscemi in Ghost World for the past day.

^^^^^^ yes

from the flirty customer aspect to the sexual encounter all the way to the end -- this is hardly full of unique details. THAT IS WHY IT IS COMPELLING!!!

oops that yes was for just1n3

I read cat person when it came out (NYer subscriber not literary clusterfuck audience).

I've followed this thread since and that's the first I heard of this essay, which I read yesterday. And woke up this morning thinking about, wtf. I think it is assholish of the essay author to write this under the circumstances. I can only come up with two true motivations to publish: attention and/or paycheck. And both of those things are fine in theory. But I dunno if it were me I wouldn't do it.

I also feel it is my professional duty to point out or remind people that "committed suicide" is a phrase that is frowned upon in professional/mental health advocacy circles. "Died by suicide" is better.

"lots of people share stories like this and wonder if it's about them" would be a fine objection if it weren't literally confirmed as true in this case

the objection re language around suicide is fair, no need for catholic bullshit

The story used her exact hometown, her workplace, the circumstances of their first date, his physical description, etc

That's the irony: the vague details spoke to thousands, so why did the writer need to derive the specific details from this one person?

seriously this story/essay/clusterfuck keeps popping up in my head, it is annoying! I was just reading this week's NYer (instead of, you know, doing my job) and the Rebecca Curtis story has this line:

"We paid babysitters to watch our toddler, theoretically so that I could write novels, but all I'd written were short stories about SLUTTY CAT-WOMEN, which my agent told me to DELETE FROM MY COMPUTER

emphasis mine lol. cat ppl everywhere.

Either carelessness or animus toward Charles

I assume the former xp

I am totally assuming simple laziness followed by self-preservation impulses kicking in, not outright malice. happens all the time.

“Careless” doesn’t seem the right word for choosing to keep every personal detail in tact. And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is, whether she had to sign any agreement that would keep the magazine from being legally culpable here.

The story used her exact hometown, her workplace, the circumstances of their first date, his physical description, etc

― treeship., Friday, July 9, 2021 12:13 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i know fact-checking isnt the right term for fiction but did the new yorker not inquire abt this stuff ?

xp

Maybe the editor also had it in for charles

I mean, if Olivia Rodrigo wrote a song from the perspective of her current boyfriend’s ex and called it “Deja Vu,” that’s an act of imagination. But if the song then mentioned his ex’s specific hometown, job, and so on…

And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is

not sure how they could possibly vet this

more than anything else, boy I sure do hate the web of underlying social and economic conditions that led to this clusterfuck, just throwing that out there

i'm smashing the rt button on that post simon

I would think the New Yorker would have some kind of legal form so that one of Updike’s neighbors couldn’t sue them if the names and addresses in a story matched.

This poem is called My Ex’s Medical Records

I would think the New Yorker would have some kind of legal form so that one of Updike’s neighbors couldn’t sue them if the names and addresses in a story matched.

― too cool for zen talk (Eazy), Friday, July 9, 2021 9:54 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

who would they send this to if they didn't know updike was writing about one of his neighbors

unless you mean some kind of language like "any resemblance to person's living or dead is wholly coincidental"

And curious what the New Yorker process of editing fiction is

Yeah maybe this is the dark side of the rise of auto-fiction. Maybe they need to start doing anti-fact checking, making sure that fiction actually isn't identifiably based on real (non-consenting) people?

xp

i just really have no idea how you would do that unless you personally knew the person who's biography was being absorbed into the text

really using apostrophes incorrectly this afternoon

unless you mean some kind of language like "any resemblance to person's living or dead is wholly coincidental"

Yeah, exactly. If Updike has a story about fucking his neighbor and describes her house and location and job exactly, no one is going to suburban Boston to check this out, but a legal form would keep them from getting sued by that neighbor,

honestly not sure what the new yorker or anyone could do about it either. I guess if there are a lot of potentially personally identifying specifics to the story it doesn't hurt to ask "hey does this identify any real actual person" but if they say "no" you're basically just taking them at their word I guess

Suicide is the only way one can die suddenly?

not sure if you're really asking here, but just in case: i might be wrong but i understand "died suddenly" to be a commonly used journalistic euphemism for death by suicide. this is done because explicit/specific references to suicide in the press result in more suicides ("the werther effect").

Cat Person got no reason
Cat Person got no reason
Cat Person got no reason to live

Need poll for who is the bigger jerk: writer of story or writer of essay about the story.

I vote the latter. Legit curious what others would vote.

The one thing we don't need is that poll

my vote is for the reader of the essay

What would be the rationale for the latter? Is it that it somehow exposes Charles to people who knew of him or that it smears the original crappy story?xp

What do you think Nowicki should have done?

Not aired her grievances publicly. It just strikes me as attention-seeking and I found the whole thing off-putting. Indulgent and insensitive.

I think she has an absolute right to try to reclaim her story, which many people recognized as her story, and clarify what Charles was like with her.

Insensitive to whom?

Sure she has the right, I’m not suggesting otherwise! I just think it is a shitty thing to do! It wasn’t HER story! She didn’t write HER story and get it published in the NYer!

Insensitive to people who cared about Charles, to keep pouring fuel onto a fire that he found distressing!

maybe it will disincline other writers from not changing details like that

"don't do that" would be a fine norm to encourage

She didn’t write HER story and get it published in the NYer!

Agree that publishing a short story about a terrible short story writer with a bunch of identifying details would have been more of a baller move.

No idea about the current process for fact-checking New Yorker fiction, but this suggests that fact-checkers were once required to check for these sorts of things:

An excerpt from Jay McInerney's 1984 novel 'Bright Lights, Big City,' which drew on his experience as a New Yorker fact-checker pic.twitter.com/XbbzDScLQN

— John M. Cunningham (@jmcunning) July 9, 2021

good catch!

Tbf, though, she did write her story and get it published in Slate. xps