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

[Anonymous]

Even the Cat Person author herself told the Slate writer upon confrontation: “I’ve spent the past several days struggling with the question of how to balance what is right for me with what I owe you.”

I mean, barf. Just barf. Such entitlement and self-importance from Roupenian.

I graduated from Michigan 25 yrs ago. The story made Ann Arbor and UM immediately recognizable to me and to my fellow grads, even before seeing Roupenian did her MFA there. I assure you, that despite being a large school, those of us from creative-focused and/or writing-focused circles ... are not a large far-flung group. People immediately started asking: Who is this about. We knew we were one or two degrees of separation from real people in a real story.

Good on Alexis for writing this AND for recognizing Roupenian's line about incels coming after her and the story being a safety risk as just that -- an attempt at guilt and manipulation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even the Cat Person author herself told the Slate writer upon confrontation: “I’ve spent the past several days struggling with the question of how to balance what is right for me with what I owe you.”

I mean, barf. Just barf. Such entitlement and self-importance from Roupenian.

I graduated from Michigan 25 yrs ago. The story made Ann Arbor and UM immediately recognizable to me and to my fellow grads, even before seeing Roupenian did her MFA there. I assure you, that despite being a large school, those of us from creative-focused and/or writing-focused circles ... are not a large far-flung group. People immediately started asking: Who is this about. We knew we were one or two degrees of separation from real people in a real story.

Good on Alexis for writing this AND for recognizing Roupenian's line about incels coming after her and the story being a safety risk as just that -- an attempt at guilt and manipulation.

+1. This all makes sense to me. Well said.

[Anonymous]

Interesting to see Slate readers and Twitter Writer People supporting the Cat Lady writer. No way, people. She ripped off the Slate writer's life, and yeah, while it's totally "allowed" in writerland, there is such an exploitive and predatory user vibe to what Cat Lady writer did. And to respond, when finally called on it, with “I’ve spent the past several days struggling with the question of how to balance what is right for me with what I owe you" -- yikes, I didn't know anyone other my 100 percent narcissistic personality disordered step-mother spoke that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s nonsense drama, but it demonstrates Roupanian lacks ethics, character, perspective, and both creative and sympathetic imagination. The story was a nothing to me when I read it and it’s further degraded knowing now that she did an insane amount of heavy lifting from real life, lied to a subject of the story, and now tried to guilt an unwitting subject of the story with “incels wanted to kill me!” It’s just pathetic and juvenile bullshit, and for what? For an inartful, unimportant little dross viral bit of crap.

I love you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

The "industry" (art?) has a million problems, but this isn't one of them. This is how the sausage gets made. Philip Roth was a good example upthread. You think the people he ripped off straight from life were always thrilled about it?

I am the one who brought up Roth. And I think it can be both a problem, and normal. I have had a few novels published and I always cringe at the thought of the people whose lives I've "borrowed" from in them reading what I've written. But then I go and do it anyway. And I hope that overall, it will have been worth it - for me, for people, but almost certainly not for the people who are turned into characters. I've never had the level of success anywhere near Cat Person - I think my novels have sold a combined 6,000 copies, not exactly bestseller stuff - but I do recognize both that this is very normal (nothing to be shocked by) and also very hurtful for the people whose lives are cut up and used. I don't know how you thread this needle, if you both want novels to exist in the world and also want to protect people from writers doing that to them. I guess like this - someone writes the story, the person whose life was used for the story then gets their turn to say what happened.

My husband was a "character" in one of his college friend's novels. I think the character gets murdered, ha ha!

On this short story, I get the distinct impression that Roupenian (short story) wrote it as a revenge piece against Charles, but she didn't anticipate it being so widely read. Annnnddd I feel like I have just come up with a great idea for a short story.

I have the same impression regarding what Roupenian intended, and that her phrasing of “encounter” was meant to suggest to Nowicki that Charles did something borderline criminal during their relationship via the use of “encounter.” Honestly, my impression of Roupenian is quite negative at this point, and she IMO speaks and writes in the language of the passive-aggressive coward.

[Anonymous]

Can I ask what was so special about the original New Yorker piece that it went viral in the first place?
(background: I never knew about this Cat person story or the scandals that ensued until this thread)
Was it just that Roupenian's story was so relatable to many women, or something else

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I ask what was so special about the original New Yorker piece that it went viral in the first place?
(background: I never knew about this Cat person story or the scandals that ensued until this thread)
Was it just that Roupenian's story was so relatable to many women, or something else

I think so. The story also led to typically immature online umbrage from men, so some purported feminists got obsessed with compiling *their* negative reactions and trying to fashion it into a moment. A lot of the success the author got was timing-reliant, which isn’t that unusual, I guess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

The "industry" (art?) has a million problems, but this isn't one of them. This is how the sausage gets made. Philip Roth was a good example upthread. You think the people he ripped off straight from life were always thrilled about it?

I am the one who brought up Roth. And I think it can be both a problem, and normal. I have had a few novels published and I always cringe at the thought of the people whose lives I've "borrowed" from in them reading what I've written. But then I go and do it anyway. And I hope that overall, it will have been worth it - for me, for people, but almost certainly not for the people who are turned into characters. I've never had the level of success anywhere near Cat Person - I think my novels have sold a combined 6,000 copies, not exactly bestseller stuff - but I do recognize both that this is very normal (nothing to be shocked by) and also very hurtful for the people whose lives are cut up and used. I don't know how you thread this needle, if you both want novels to exist in the world and also want to protect people from writers doing that to them. I guess like this - someone writes the story, the person whose life was used for the story then gets their turn to say what happened.

My husband was a "character" in one of his college friend's novels. I think the character gets murdered, ha ha!

On this short story, I get the distinct impression that Roupenian (short story) wrote it as a revenge piece against Charles, but she didn't anticipate it being so widely read. Annnnddd I feel like I have just come up with a great idea for a short story.

I have the same impression regarding what Roupenian intended, and that her phrasing of “encounter” was meant to suggest to Nowicki that Charles did something borderline criminal during their relationship via the use of “encounter.” Honestly, my impression of Roupenian is quite negative at this point, and she IMO speaks and writes in the language of the passive-aggressive coward.

Interesting - I read “encounter” as she hooked up with this dude a few times but never truly dated him, and encounter was her classier word choice than hook-up.

Either way, boo on Roupenian, and now we’ll be subjected to her fictional take of an author who negatively wrote about someone who then possibly committed suicide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even the Cat Person author herself told the Slate writer upon confrontation: “I’ve spent the past several days struggling with the question of how to balance what is right for me with what I owe you.”

I mean, barf. Just barf. Such entitlement and self-importance from Roupenian.

I graduated from Michigan 25 yrs ago. The story made Ann Arbor and UM immediately recognizable to me and to my fellow grads, even before seeing Roupenian did her MFA there. I assure you, that despite being a large school, those of us from creative-focused and/or writing-focused circles ... are not a large far-flung group. People immediately started asking: Who is this about. We knew we were one or two degrees of separation from real people in a real story.

Good on Alexis for writing this AND for recognizing Roupenian's line about incels coming after her and the story being a safety risk as just that -- an attempt at guilt and manipulation.

Sorry but a fiction writer can mind whatever the hell they want. No apologies are owed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even the Cat Person author herself told the Slate writer upon confrontation: “I’ve spent the past several days struggling with the question of how to balance what is right for me with what I owe you.”

I mean, barf. Just barf. Such entitlement and self-importance from Roupenian.

I graduated from Michigan 25 yrs ago. The story made Ann Arbor and UM immediately recognizable to me and to my fellow grads, even before seeing Roupenian did her MFA there. I assure you, that despite being a large school, those of us from creative-focused and/or writing-focused circles ... are not a large far-flung group. People immediately started asking: Who is this about. We knew we were one or two degrees of separation from real people in a real story.

Good on Alexis for writing this AND for recognizing Roupenian's line about incels coming after her and the story being a safety risk as just that -- an attempt at guilt and manipulation.

Sorry but a fiction writer can mind whatever the hell they want. No apologies are owed

[Anonymous]

Reminds me of how Jack Kerouac destroyed the life of Neal Cassidy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

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.

The "industry" (art?) has a million problems, but this isn't one of them. This is how the sausage gets made. Philip Roth was a good example upthread. You think the people he ripped off straight from life were always thrilled about it?

I am the one who brought up Roth. And I think it can be both a problem, and normal. I have had a few novels published and I always cringe at the thought of the people whose lives I've "borrowed" from in them reading what I've written. But then I go and do it anyway. And I hope that overall, it will have been worth it - for me, for people, but almost certainly not for the people who are turned into characters. I've never had the level of success anywhere near Cat Person - I think my novels have sold a combined 6,000 copies, not exactly bestseller stuff - but I do recognize both that this is very normal (nothing to be shocked by) and also very hurtful for the people whose lives are cut up and used. I don't know how you thread this needle, if you both want novels to exist in the world and also want to protect people from writers doing that to them. I guess like this - someone writes the story, the person whose life was used for the story then gets their turn to say what happened.

My husband was a "character" in one of his college friend's novels. I think the character gets murdered, ha ha!

On this short story, I get the distinct impression that Roupenian (short story) wrote it as a revenge piece against Charles, but she didn't anticipate it being so widely read. Annnnddd I feel like I have just come up with a great idea for a short story.

I agree with your take. I was also a minor character in one of DH’s friend’s novels. My novelistic self had a penchant for vacuuming naked, which my family and friends all had a good laugh about, especially my mom who liked to point out that she’d never caught me vacuuming. I feel terrible for the real-life Charles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even the Cat Person author herself told the Slate writer upon confrontation: “I’ve spent the past several days struggling with the question of how to balance what is right for me with what I owe you.”

I mean, barf. Just barf. Such entitlement and self-importance from Roupenian.

I graduated from Michigan 25 yrs ago. The story made Ann Arbor and UM immediately recognizable to me and to my fellow grads, even before seeing Roupenian did her MFA there. I assure you, that despite being a large school, those of us from creative-focused and/or writing-focused circles ... are not a large far-flung group. People immediately started asking: Who is this about. We knew we were one or two degrees of separation from real people in a real story.

Good on Alexis for writing this AND for recognizing Roupenian's line about incels coming after her and the story being a safety risk as just that -- an attempt at guilt and manipulation.

Sorry but a fiction writer can mind whatever the hell they want. No apologies are owed

Someone should write a story where the main character is easily identified as you (same hometown, same job, etc.), and, as part of the plot, the main character kills an innocent person or molests a child. But the author makes clear that it’s a work of fiction. So no problem, right?

[Anonymous]

The subject is on the Slate Culture Gabfest this week. She is interesting and I think really does get the nuances.

https://slate.com/podcasts/culture-gabfest/2021/07/reviewing-black-widow-cat-person-essay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I ask what was so special about the original New Yorker piece that it went viral in the first place?
(background: I never knew about this Cat person story or the scandals that ensued until this thread)
Was it just that Roupenian's story was so relatable to many women, or something else

I think so. The story also led to typically immature online umbrage from men, so some purported feminists got obsessed with compiling *their* negative reactions and trying to fashion it into a moment. A lot of the success the author got was timing-reliant, which isn’t that unusual, I guess.

I think the story exposed a generational divide. As a GenXer, I was fairly horrified by the main character’s lack of agency. She just went along with sleeping with him, and then got mad at him instead of herself. Younger women saw it a completely different way. Similar to the Aziz Ansari date story. I just don’t get the passivity of both women. I think the generational split created the controversy.