Stop plagiarizing my book.

From swans to stains to clubs for the canceled, life keeps imitating my fiction.

Apologies in advance for this very book-focused post. But I have to share this.

A few Thursdays ago, my phone started blowing up with texts and social media DMs from friends.

Did you see this?

This totally made me think of your book!

Life imitates art?

OMG, it’s the Society of Shame!

It continued like this for several days. It was because an article had just come out in The New Yorker revealing the existence of the “Gathering of the Thought Criminals”—a secret club of people who perceived themselves as having been “canceled” for one reason or another, mainly for going against liberal intellectual/cultural orthodoxies. The group, which meets monthly over cocktails and dinner, is helmed by a glamorous matriarch sort who reaches out to people she thinks might be a good fit.

If you’ve read The Society of Shame, then this is probably sounding VERY familiar….

If you haven’t read it, what the hell is the matter with you? JUST KIDDING! If you haven’t read it, here’s why the New Yorker thing is so crazy: In my novel, the main character stumbles across a secret club for people who have been “canceled” or publicly shamed or humiliated, who meet periodically over cocktails and dinner (or lunch, or brunch). The group is helmed by a glamorous matriarch sort who reaches out to people she thinks might be a good fit.

I mean….right???

Now, there are some key differences between the Thought Criminals and the Society of Shame, in terms of their purpose, membership, and ethos. In fact, the Society of Shame seems downright lovable compared to the icky grievance-fest that the Thought Criminals seems to be. Also, mine is fictional. The real one is…real. (I talked about all this and more on an interview I did recently on LitHub’s Fiction/Nonfiction podcast.)

But the Thought Criminals thing wasn’t the first time something verrrrrry similar to a plot point or detail in my book suddenly appeared in the headlines—or I was flooded with people sending me those It’s straight out of your book! messages.

For example, there was this:

Click to read the story

And this:

And this:

Those who have read my novel know that the inciting incident is a photo of the main character with a period stain on her pants that goes viral. The photo also reveals her U.S. Senate candidate husband caught in flagrante delicto. But naturally people are MUCH more fixated on the period stain, because of course they would be.

In the three (real) stories above, prominent women got flak for their visible period stains (or simulated ones, in the Kenyan senator’s case), and pushed back, refusing to be ashamed. The (fictional) #YesWeBleed activists in The Society of Shame would be proud. And I think it’s great, too. While the massive, unified pro-period movement in The Society of Shame is fictional, and while I do poke fun at some aspects of internet activism (and activism in general), there is a true anti-period poverty, anti-stigma movement happening through grassroots initiatives around the world and individual acts like those above. It’s awesome.

Now. The weirdest fiction-meets-reality thing so far was definitely this:

Click to read the story…if you dare.

OK, nobody actually eats a swan in my book. (Although the topic is discussed.) But there IS a pair of beloved swans, Sonny and Cher, in the New York town where the story takes place. Their threatened habitat becomes one of the book’s more ludicrous plot points, and a swan graces a cover of the book as well. In fact, it looks an awful like the one in the picture above, which, if you squint at a certain way, seems to be wearing sunglasses.

But the life-imitates-art stuff actually started well before The Society of Shame was published. For example—and I’ll keep this vague to avoid a spoiler—in the book there is a vocally anti-abortion public figure who is exposed for having paid for an abortion for his mistress. While my book was in copy edits, the news broke about (supposedly anti-abortion) U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker doing just that.

And months before that, an early reader brought it to my attention that people do, in fact, make earrings out of tampons, just like the teenage activitists in my book do. Who knew?

Photo from the SpellboundGabrielle shop on Etsy. Click to visit!

But such is the nature of satire, right? It’s a funhouse mirror version of reality, where everything is recognizable, but parts of it are warped to varying degrees to emphasize their hypocrisy, absurdity, and/or depravity. The problem is, there’s just so much weird in the world—especially these days—that inevitably some of the details or plot points the author intends to be just shy of over-the-top turn out to be very far under it.

So, at this point it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if, someday soon, HGTV rolls out a new reality show called “He Shed, She Shed” (page 126) or Starbucks comes out with a limited edition Bloodred Velvet Macchiato in celebration of menstrual pride (page 226), or Wolf Blitzer publishes a children’s book (page 239). In fact, I can’t believe they haven’t yet.

I’ve finally starting writing my next novel, and I don’t think it’s going to be quite as full-on satirical as The Society of Shame. But I do think that I’m going to follow the suggestion my editor made not too long ago, when I sent her the swan-eating story: Maybe you should put some lottery numbers in it.

P.S. I had a great conversation about writing funny / satirical fiction, among other random things (like whether or not it’s OK to kill coyotes) with the ever-so-fun and charming KJ Dell’Antonia, author of the forthcoming Playing the Witch Card, on her #AmWriting podcast. Check it out!

P.P.S. I’ve got my last couple of public events for a while happening this week, but I still would love to pop in via Zoom (or in person in the Greater Boston area) to say hi and do a Q&A at your book club! There’s even a fun discussion guide + cocktail recipe. Reply here or shoot me an email at janeroper [at] gmail [dot-com].