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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the poster just above. Is the issue that the story is about sex, and that the author has imagined the character in a very detailed sexual situation? Is that what makes it feel "wrong" to you? If an author borrowed a couple biographical details from someone she didn't know to flesh out an imagined story about the person finding a lost dog, would it grate in the same way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm the poster just above. Is the issue that the story is about sex, and that the author has imagined the character in a very detailed sexual situation? Is that what makes it feel "wrong" to you? If an author borrowed a couple biographical details from someone she didn't know to flesh out an imagined story about the person finding a lost dog, would it grate in the same way?

DP, but I’m going to go with “No” on that one. I can’t imagine that borrowing a huge number (not the couple you mention) of biographical details about a character finding a lost job would concern me overly much, even though it’s lazy as can be. It’s not the sort of thing that would make me keep an old iPhone so I could review my texts and reassure myself that I wasn’t the d*ck portrayed in this particular story (though many real life people assumed I was) and it wouldn’t seem like a trigger for depression or, perhaps, suicide. Do you see the difference?

[Anonymous]

Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read that today. Super interesting. I remember the original story from when it was first written - I think we could all relate to it in some way. I feel bad for Alexis and “Charles” too. It sounded like from the way Alexis described their relationship, it wasn’t great but it wasn’t as bad as the short story either, and people immediately connected them to the short story so it had to have been SUPER awkward.

I remember that story going viral and certainly generational differences. What we if any older generation would call “disappointing sex with a weird guy” was called “rape” by the gen Z. It was a boring story about a dull relationship. Knowing that it is an exact story about two real people is just wrong and so lazy. More like ugly gossip than literature.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Yes, crappy writers like Hemingway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[5] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Or Fitzgerald, fictionalizing his friends the Murphys in Tender is the Night (spoiler: they did not enjoy being fictionalized):

https://www.hellomonaco.com/sightseeing/history-pages/stranger-than-fiction-the-real-lives-that-inspired-tender-is-the-night/#:~:text=On%20July%2028%2C%201962%2C%20Gerald,%2C%20by%20twenty%2Dfour%20years.

I'm not saying the author of Cat Person is Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but your comment, though it sounds good, is naive about how (a lot of) writers work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Yes, crappy writers like Hemingway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[5] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Or Fitzgerald, fictionalizing his friends the Murphys in Tender is the Night (spoiler: they did not enjoy being fictionalized):

https://www.hellomonaco.com/sightseeing/history-pages/stranger-than-fiction-the-real-lives-that-inspired-tender-is-the-night/#:~:text=On%20July%2028%2C%201962%2C%20Gerald,%2C%20by%20twenty%2Dfour%20years.

I'm not saying the author of Cat Person is Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but your comment, though it sounds good, is naive about how (a lot of) writers work.

That was a different time and ethics were different then. Also, it was before the advent of social media, which changes the ball game. How many people at that time even realized who those character were based on? If CP writer had just changed a few more details, no one would have put two and two together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Yes, crappy writers like Hemingway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[5] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Or Fitzgerald, fictionalizing his friends the Murphys in Tender is the Night (spoiler: they did not enjoy being fictionalized):

https://www.hellomonaco.com/sightseeing/history-pages/stranger-than-fiction-the-real-lives-that-inspired-tender-is-the-night/#:~:text=On%20July%2028%2C%201962%2C%20Gerald,%2C%20by%20twenty%2Dfour%20years.

I'm not saying the author of Cat Person is Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but your comment, though it sounds good, is naive about how (a lot of) writers work.

That was a different time and ethics were different then. Also, it was before the advent of social media, which changes the ball game. How many people at that time even realized who those character were based on? If CP writer had just changed a few more details, no one would have put two and two together.

PP again. I meant to say not just social media but the internet in general. No one is suggesting you can’t base characters off of real people, but in this day and age, if the real people can be quickly and easily identified, then you’re either a lazy/crappy writer or unethical (or both).

[Anonymous]

Why is it called “Cat Person”?

[Anonymous]

How did Charles pass away? Was it because he was written about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Nope. Just ask anyone who ever knew Philip Roth. It's just how it is. Except maybe, like, pure sci-fi fantasy that is all plot and no real character development.

This doesn't mean people have to like it when they're the one who gets their lives minced into fiction. Just, it's normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Yes, crappy writers like Hemingway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[5] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Or Fitzgerald, fictionalizing his friends the Murphys in Tender is the Night (spoiler: they did not enjoy being fictionalized):

https://www.hellomonaco.com/sightseeing/history-pages/stranger-than-fiction-the-real-lives-that-inspired-tender-is-the-night/#:~:text=On%20July%2028%2C%201962%2C%20Gerald,%2C%20by%20twenty%2Dfour%20years.

I'm not saying the author of Cat Person is Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but your comment, though it sounds good, is naive about how (a lot of) writers work.

That was a different time and ethics were different then. Also, it was before the advent of social media, which changes the ball game. How many people at that time even realized who those character were based on? If CP writer had just changed a few more details, no one would have put two and two together.

TL;DR: you don't know any writers

[Anonymous]

Here’s the thread where the original short story was discussed:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/688222.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Yes, crappy writers like Hemingway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[5] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Or Fitzgerald, fictionalizing his friends the Murphys in Tender is the Night (spoiler: they did not enjoy being fictionalized):

https://www.hellomonaco.com/sightseeing/history-pages/stranger-than-fiction-the-real-lives-that-inspired-tender-is-the-night/#:~:text=On%20July%2028%2C%201962%2C%20Gerald,%2C%20by%20twenty%2Dfour%20years.

I'm not saying the author of Cat Person is Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but your comment, though it sounds good, is naive about how (a lot of) writers work.

That was a different time and ethics were different then. Also, it was before the advent of social media, which changes the ball game. How many people at that time even realized who those character were based on? If CP writer had just changed a few more details, no one would have put two and two together.

TL;DR: you don't know any writers

I do. And I disagree with you. Your impulse here lacks all self-reflection, which is absolutely no surprise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Nope. Just ask anyone who ever knew Philip Roth. It's just how it is. Except maybe, like, pure sci-fi fantasy that is all plot and no real character development.

This doesn't mean people have to like it when they're the one who gets their lives minced into fiction. Just, it's normal.

If it’s normal, then the industry has a serious problem. Again, we aren’t talking about simply using a real-life person for inspiration. That’s fine as long as they aren’t easily identified. What happened here is very different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Writers who claim that it’s normal to borrow so many true-life details that readers can identify the actual people on which characters were based are probably crappy writers. It’s not difficult to develop characters that aren’t obviously based on real people. And it’s the ethical thing to do.

Yes, crappy writers like Hemingway:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Farewell_to_Arms: The novel was based on Hemingway's own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War. The inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America.[5] Kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona. Although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time.

Or Fitzgerald, fictionalizing his friends the Murphys in Tender is the Night (spoiler: they did not enjoy being fictionalized):

https://www.hellomonaco.com/sightseeing/history-pages/stranger-than-fiction-the-real-lives-that-inspired-tender-is-the-night/#:~:text=On%20July%2028%2C%201962%2C%20Gerald,%2C%20by%20twenty%2Dfour%20years.

I'm not saying the author of Cat Person is Hemingway or Fitzgerald, but your comment, though it sounds good, is naive about how (a lot of) writers work.

That was a different time and ethics were different then. Also, it was before the advent of social media, which changes the ball game. How many people at that time even realized who those character were based on? If CP writer had just changed a few more details, no one would have put two and two together.

TL;DR: you don't know any writers

I do. And I disagree with you. Your impulse here lacks all self-reflection, which is absolutely no surprise.

It’s also a very selfish and reckless perspective. I wouldn’t be surprised if the CP story contributed to Charles’ death in some way.