I just finished R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface and although I originally felt the prose was a bit dry/lacking personality, I was absolutely riveted as I was propelled forward with the thematic tension that was built around the issue of how the authors come to leech off their interactions with their subjects/others to build stories, and the ambiguity around what an author owes to the subject/inspiration of reporting.
It reminded me of two other books that I absolutely love for mining the same subject and not necessarily coming to an answer, but exploring the way in which the author has to negotiate what they’re extracting from subjects, and what they owe to subjects in return, in the pursuit of creating art.
Those were The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm and True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa by Michael Finkel. I was wondering if anyone had similar suggestions on that theme, regardless of whether its fiction, true crime, memoir, academic, etc. I’ve just started Eliza Clark’s Penance and am wondering if it will explore that subject.
by generouscake
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Jean Hanff Korelitz’s **The Plot** is a fictional mystery/suspense about an author’s theft of a plot that turns into a best seller.
London Fields by Martin Amis has a narrator who is an (unsuccessful) author. the story he is writing is also basically the story of amis’ novel. the fictional author/narrator has a pretty unique relationship with his protagonist, who is (in that world) a real person.
it’s complicated 😋