Subject of famous/infamous New Yorker "Cat Person" short story revealed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you're sort of (and even the slate piece) is missing the point.

The author of cat people said it was 100% fiction. The slate writer figured out it was about her and confirmed with thee cat people author that those were her details, it had been based on her. Charles admitted to another friend he was upset that the cat people author 'dragged" slate author "into it."

So, it seems like the people in the story were slate and Charles, but the truly bad experiences were Cat people and Charles. Cat people fictionalized her bad experience with Charles by subbing in slate author's bio details.

So much nonsense drama.

But it isn't nonsense. If someone wrote a "fictionalize" version of an incident in your life, and provided identifying details, then added other, derogatory details that were not true, that is not right. Cat People author should not have included identifying details.

+1 Roupenian, clearly, lacks a moral compass.

I don't know about that. She's a writer - and was a young writer when she wrote this piece. I don't know if you know any writers - I am one - and especially at that early time in your life, before you've been published and your main thing is just to get GOOD and hopefully have someone take notice, you're not really thinking about how this will affect anyone who you've pilfered from. You're drawing on real life and then twisting it into fiction - that's how it works. I am not saying that what she did was good - and I think the Slate writer has every right in the world to be upset, and to tell her side of the story. I just also think, this is what writers do. It sucks, it's normal. I guess you could say no writers have a moral compass.

It’s not hard to change a few identifying details. In fact, that’s what most writers do.

+1 FFS, people do that when they post on DCUM.

Well she changed a lot of details, like where they met, how long they dated, that actually Nowicki was even younger, etc. I’m surprised, comparing Cat Person to the Slate piece, that people even put it together.

[Anonymous]

How did Charles die? I feel like it's implying by suicide??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you're sort of (and even the slate piece) is missing the point.

The author of cat people said it was 100% fiction. The slate writer figured out it was about her and confirmed with thee cat people author that those were her details, it had been based on her. Charles admitted to another friend he was upset that the cat people author 'dragged" slate author "into it."

So, it seems like the people in the story were slate and Charles, but the truly bad experiences were Cat people and Charles. Cat people fictionalized her bad experience with Charles by subbing in slate author's bio details.

So much nonsense drama.

But it isn't nonsense. If someone wrote a "fictionalize" version of an incident in your life, and provided identifying details, then added other, derogatory details that were not true, that is not right. Cat People author should not have included identifying details.

+1 Roupenian, clearly, lacks a moral compass.

I don't know about that. She's a writer - and was a young writer when she wrote this piece. I don't know if you know any writers - I am one - and especially at that early time in your life, before you've been published and your main thing is just to get GOOD and hopefully have someone take notice, you're not really thinking about how this will affect anyone who you've pilfered from. You're drawing on real life and then twisting it into fiction - that's how it works. I am not saying that what she did was good - and I think the Slate writer has every right in the world to be upset, and to tell her side of the story. I just also think, this is what writers do. It sucks, it's normal. I guess you could say no writers have a moral compass.

It’s not hard to change a few identifying details. In fact, that’s what most writers do.

She changed a lot. She just also left a lot in. I'm sure at some point she thought about asking her editor if they could make some changes, then worried that if she asked for too much - or revealed too much about knowing who the story was actually based on - she'd end up not getting published. But she probably also felt like those details mattered to the authenticity of the story. And look how much it resonated - and is still sparking discussion and debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like you're sort of (and even the slate piece) is missing the point.

The author of cat people said it was 100% fiction. The slate writer figured out it was about her and confirmed with thee cat people author that those were her details, it had been based on her. Charles admitted to another friend he was upset that the cat people author 'dragged" slate author "into it."

So, it seems like the people in the story were slate and Charles, but the truly bad experiences were Cat people and Charles. Cat people fictionalized her bad experience with Charles by subbing in slate author's bio details.

So much nonsense drama.

But it isn't nonsense. If someone wrote a "fictionalize" version of an incident in your life, and provided identifying details, then added other, derogatory details that were not true, that is not right. Cat People author should not have included identifying details.

+1 Roupenian, clearly, lacks a moral compass.

I don't know about that. She's a writer - and was a young writer when she wrote this piece. I don't know if you know any writers - I am one - and especially at that early time in your life, before you've been published and your main thing is just to get GOOD and hopefully have someone take notice, you're not really thinking about how this will affect anyone who you've pilfered from. You're drawing on real life and then twisting it into fiction - that's how it works. I am not saying that what she did was good - and I think the Slate writer has every right in the world to be upset, and to tell her side of the story. I just also think, this is what writers do. It sucks, it's normal. I guess you could say no writers have a moral compass.

It’s not hard to change a few identifying details. In fact, that’s what most writers do.

+1 FFS, people do that when they post on DCUM.

The fact you see posting on DCUM as equivalent to being a young fiction writer who is getting published in the New Yorker says a lot! Again, I am not saying what the writer did was great - just, that it is very NORMAL to be that much of a jerk if you're a writer. Or that type of jerk. It's just most people don't end up with their jerky story in the New Yorker.

[Anonymous]

This is fundamentally about the story author’s lack of ethics and of talent. She went on a date (which she priggishly titles “an encounter” - privacy for me but never for thee), didn’t enjoy herself or got pissed when she found out his recent girlfriend was very young, ghosted or dumped, and then had some obsessive online sessions to do some recon about the young woman.

This is not creative work, and the story simply isn’t that good, at least to me, a woman in her 40s. It’s so absurd, all of it, and swapping Saline for Holcomb or a multiplex with art offerings for the Michigan Theater, or having “‘Margot” work part time at a fictional arts space in Detroit would have done nothing to change the fictional elements for the worse. The book of stories got a deadly “needy and dull” review by at least one major source, the NYT.

The Twitter crap about this is almost interesting, but not. It’s a lot of blue-checks sneering at peons about what writers do. I know a lot of writers, a few of whom actually have talent. All writers cannibalize and have to have a certain ruthlessness but there are degrees. We’re talking about this because it’s middling (generous) work and the Slate essayist shows IMO more maturity and talent than the New Yorker-published author.

[Anonymous]

I'm a writer and I read the essay. I really don't think the premise of the essay is correct, at all. Roupenian wrote a story about a young woman having a relationship with an older man (an extremely common scenario) based on someone she knew of, and used details about a movie theater and a town name from that person's life. The story itself, the sexual encounter, the thoughts in the person's head--it's all fiction. The essayist herself says the second half of the story is not at all reflective of her relationship. The story went viral because of its universality, not because it was an accurate summation of the essayist's relationship with Charles.

Later, the essayist says it's making her second-guess the nature of her relationship with "Charles," but that seems silly, because her relationship was one thing and the imagined story is another. A person imagining your life doesn't have more acute insight into your life than you do, and it's stupid for her to entertain the possibility. I don't think R did anything wrong, though changing the town name might have been a good idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is fundamentally about the story author’s lack of ethics and of talent. She went on a date (which she priggishly titles “an encounter” - privacy for me but never for thee), didn’t enjoy herself or got pissed when she found out his recent girlfriend was very young, ghosted or dumped, and then had some obsessive online sessions to do some recon about the young woman.

This is not creative work, and the story simply isn’t that good, at least to me, a woman in her 40s. It’s so absurd, all of it, and swapping Saline for Holcomb or a multiplex with art offerings for the Michigan Theater, or having “‘Margot” work part time at a fictional arts space in Detroit would have done nothing to change the fictional elements for the worse. The book of stories got a deadly “needy and dull” review by at least one major source, the NYT.

The Twitter crap about this is almost interesting, but not. It’s a lot of blue-checks sneering at peons about what writers do. I know a lot of writers, a few of whom actually have talent. All writers cannibalize and have to have a certain ruthlessness but there are degrees. We’re talking about this because it’s middling (generous) work and the Slate essayist shows IMO more maturity and talent than the New Yorker-published author.

Of course it's creative work. As an exercise, go look at some random person's instagram for an hour, write a short story about it, and get back to me about whether you think it's creative work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a writer and I read the essay. I really don't think the premise of the essay is correct, at all. Roupenian wrote a story about a young woman having a relationship with an older man (an extremely common scenario) based on someone she knew of, and used details about a movie theater and a town name from that person's life. The story itself, the sexual encounter, the thoughts in the person's head--it's all fiction. The essayist herself says the second half of the story is not at all reflective of her relationship. The story went viral because of its universality, not because it was an accurate summation of the essayist's relationship with Charles.

Later, the essayist says it's making her second-guess the nature of her relationship with "Charles," but that seems silly, because her relationship was one thing and the imagined story is another. A person imagining your life doesn't have more acute insight into your life than you do, and it's stupid for her to entertain the possibility. I don't think R did anything wrong, though changing the town name might have been a good idea.

You’re missing every possible point, how surprising. Have you done that level of lifting? It’s not creative, and her failure to swap or scrub the exact items that made the essayist’s friends guess she’d actually written the story shows the limits of Roupanian’s…everything. It’s such bullshit. I’ve read defenses like “if she’d swapped details it may have jeopardized publication!” Make that make sense please.

As for what you wrote below, girl, please. Yeah. Rachel Cusk totally had to use eerie details of her ex’s post-divorce gf to even start Outline. Wait, she didn’t? Wait, not everyone has to scour MyLife before they start typing? Oh you don’t say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a writer and I read the essay. I really don't think the premise of the essay is correct, at all. Roupenian wrote a story about a young woman having a relationship with an older man (an extremely common scenario) based on someone she knew of, and used details about a movie theater and a town name from that person's life. The story itself, the sexual encounter, the thoughts in the person's head--it's all fiction. The essayist herself says the second half of the story is not at all reflective of her relationship. The story went viral because of its universality, not because it was an accurate summation of the essayist's relationship with Charles.

Later, the essayist says it's making her second-guess the nature of her relationship with "Charles," but that seems silly, because her relationship was one thing and the imagined story is another. A person imagining your life doesn't have more acute insight into your life than you do, and it's stupid for her to entertain the possibility. I don't think R did anything wrong, though changing the town name might have been a good idea.

You’re missing every possible point, how surprising. Have you done that level of lifting? It’s not creative, and her failure to swap or scrub the exact items that made the essayist’s friends guess she’d actually written the story shows the limits of Roupanian’s…everything. It’s such bullshit. I’ve read defenses like “if she’d swapped details it may have jeopardized publication!” Make that make sense please.

As for what you wrote below, girl, please. Yeah. Rachel Cusk totally had to use eerie details of her ex’s post-divorce gf to even start Outline. Wait, she didn’t? Wait, not everyone has to scour MyLife before they start typing? Oh you don’t say.

Either I'm missing your point, or you're missing mine, but Rachel Cusks's work is intensely autobiographical, so that's a weird counterexample.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a writer and I read the essay. I really don't think the premise of the essay is correct, at all. Roupenian wrote a story about a young woman having a relationship with an older man (an extremely common scenario) based on someone she knew of, and used details about a movie theater and a town name from that person's life. The story itself, the sexual encounter, the thoughts in the person's head--it's all fiction. The essayist herself says the second half of the story is not at all reflective of her relationship. The story went viral because of its universality, not because it was an accurate summation of the essayist's relationship with Charles.

Later, the essayist says it's making her second-guess the nature of her relationship with "Charles," but that seems silly, because her relationship was one thing and the imagined story is another. A person imagining your life doesn't have more acute insight into your life than you do, and it's stupid for her to entertain the possibility. I don't think R did anything wrong, though changing the town name might have been a good idea.

You’re missing every possible point, how surprising. Have you done that level of lifting? It’s not creative, and her failure to swap or scrub the exact items that made the essayist’s friends guess she’d actually written the story shows the limits of Roupanian’s…everything. It’s such bullshit. I’ve read defenses like “if she’d swapped details it may have jeopardized publication!” Make that make sense please.

As for what you wrote below, girl, please. Yeah. Rachel Cusk totally had to use eerie details of her ex’s post-divorce gf to even start Outline. Wait, she didn’t? Wait, not everyone has to scour MyLife before they start typing? Oh you don’t say.

Either I'm missing your point, or you're missing mine, but Rachel Cusks's work is intensely autobiographical, so that's a weird counterexample.

Yes - you are. She scrubs and transforms everything into actual universality. I am somewhat amazed at writers not seeing any space between that and CP. Maybe you should poll the friends and family you’ve lifted from if you’re still unable to make the distinction.

[Anonymous]

For the resident defensive writer:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CAMONGHNE/status/1413149706427846665

She cut through the horseshit with a quickness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the resident defensive writer:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CAMONGHNE/status/1413149706427846665

She cut through the horseshit with a quickness.

Great tweet! I also love this reply: “Even Gossip Girl had better ethics than this.”

[Anonymous]

I feel like this is a really weird and concerning combination of voyeurism, stalking, and libel, all rolled into one. It’s disturbing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a writer and I read the essay. I really don't think the premise of the essay is correct, at all. Roupenian wrote a story about a young woman having a relationship with an older man (an extremely common scenario) based on someone she knew of, and used details about a movie theater and a town name from that person's life. The story itself, the sexual encounter, the thoughts in the person's head--it's all fiction. The essayist herself says the second half of the story is not at all reflective of her relationship. The story went viral because of its universality, not because it was an accurate summation of the essayist's relationship with Charles.

Later, the essayist says it's making her second-guess the nature of her relationship with "Charles," but that seems silly, because her relationship was one thing and the imagined story is another. A person imagining your life doesn't have more acute insight into your life than you do, and it's stupid for her to entertain the possibility. I don't think R did anything wrong, though changing the town name might have been a good idea.

You’re missing every possible point, how surprising. Have you done that level of lifting? It’s not creative, and her failure to swap or scrub the exact items that made the essayist’s friends guess she’d actually written the story shows the limits of Roupanian’s…everything. It’s such bullshit. I’ve read defenses like “if she’d swapped details it may have jeopardized publication!” Make that make sense please.

As for what you wrote below, girl, please. Yeah. Rachel Cusk totally had to use eerie details of her ex’s post-divorce gf to even start Outline. Wait, she didn’t? Wait, not everyone has to scour MyLife before they start typing? Oh you don’t say.

Either I'm missing your point, or you're missing mine, but Rachel Cusks's work is intensely autobiographical, so that's a weird counterexample.

Yes - you are. She scrubs and transforms everything into actual universality. I am somewhat amazed at writers not seeing any space between that and CP. Maybe you should poll the friends and family you’ve lifted from if you’re still unable to make the distinction.

Does she, though? Do you know her ex-husband well? Does he agree that he's been "scrubbed" into universality, or does he not care that he bears a lot of similarities to the character of the ex-husband in her work? Certainly there are a lot of undisguised similarities: what he does for a living, where he lives, the number and sex of his children, his age, background.

I know a lot of writers, and I have appeared fictionally in other writers' work (or at least, someone with superficial, specific similarities to me has appeared in their work), and although it's a little funny, it's not something I would write an essay about or think has much to do with me. It's still the author's work.

Oneof the things I enjoy about literary biography is learning about the real-world models for the characters in novels I love.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the resident defensive writer:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CAMONGHNE/status/1413149706427846665

She cut through the horseshit with a quickness.

That Twitter account is pretty infamous for bad hot takes. And this is one of them.