{"id":81123,"date":"2014-12-26T09:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-12-26T14:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=81123"},"modified":"2014-12-22T11:40:39","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T16:40:39","slug":"youve-been-fictionalized-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/26\/youve-been-fictionalized-2\/","title":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve Been Fictionalized!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re out until January 5, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2014 while we\u2019re away. We hope you enjoy\u2014and have a happy New Year!<\/em><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Is this <\/em>really what you think of me?<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The shock of recognition.<\/p><\/div>\n

Twenty-odd years ago, T.\u2009C. Boyle asked me about the artists\u2019 colonies I\u2019d been to\u2014he was writing a novel. I described the lunches dropped off on the residents\u2019 porches, the nightly readings and revels. When his book, East Is East<\/em>, came out, I read a few chapters, then stopped, gut-socked and mortified. Yes, there, sprinkled in, was the material I\u2019d given him, along with an added surprise\u2014Wasn\u2019t that me in those pages, and cast in a none-too-flattering light?<\/p>\n

In real life, T.\u2009C. called me La Huneven, and here he called his heroine, Ruth Dershowitz, La Dershowitz. Ruth was a talentless writer who aspired to literary fiction while writing restaurant reviews and articles for Cosmo<\/em>. Hey! I wrote restaurant reviews! And I\u2019d once written an article for Cosmo<\/em>! Was this, then, what Tom really thought of me? That I was a talentless airhead poseur trying to break into the hallowed world of literature?<\/p>\n

This was my first experience of being fictionalized. I still recall the yellow-white flash of queasiness, the mortification: a sense of powerlessness and an utter lack of recourse. Read More >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re out until January 5, but we\u2019re re-posting some of our favorite pieces from 2014 while we\u2019re away. We hope you enjoy\u2014and have a happy New Year! * Is this really what you think of me? Twenty-odd years ago, T.\u2009C. Boyle asked me about the artists\u2019 colonies I\u2019d been to\u2014he was writing a novel. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":729,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16464],"tags":[1084,4864,14751,14755,14753,11479,71,13729,14752,14757,14756,12251,14754],"class_list":["post-81123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-of-2014","tag-adaptation","tag-autobiography","tag-being-fictionalized","tag-borrowing","tag-characterization","tag-characters","tag-fiction","tag-novelists","tag-reality","tag-recognition","tag-the-writing-life","tag-theft","tag-truth-in-fiction"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Can You Do When You\u2019ve Been Fictionalized?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Michelle Huneven on the experience of being fictionalized by T. C. 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