January 26, 2005

Sittenfeld Says, "It's Fiction!"

Unlike some of my esteemed friends, I haven't blogged about the hoopla surrounding Curtis Sittenfeld and whether or not her novel is a thinly disguised roman a clef. Until now. Today's NY Times has an article about Sittenfeld, in which she essentially expresses surprise that people have been asking whether, like her character, she gave a blow job to her high school crush.

While Ms. Sittenfeld used a recent interview here to talk about the novel and all the ways she is not Lee, her publisher's publicity machine is complicit in the tease. "Prep" press material includes Ms. Sittenfeld's Groton School class photograph, a shot of the cute boy who was her high school crush and her senior yearbook quote and list of activities.

"In a way it's flattering that it seems so real," Ms. Sittenfeld said, adding that at Groton she was less an outsider than is Lee at the fictional Ault School, with more friends and more of an identity through writing. "But is it so easy to believe that I have no imagination and I can't invent dialogue or those scenarios?"

Unless, of course, this denial, too, is part of the stunt. You know: Private information about the author is sent to members of the press; they dutifully report it and ask questions about the author; the author, in turn, huffs that it's a work of fiction; and it all ends up getting a few thousand more copies sold.

At any rate, I doubt Sittenfeld is that uncomfortable with the attention. And with all the ink being spilled on whether or not those b-js were real, she's bound to have a following.

Update A former classmate of Sittenfeld's at Groton emails in to advise us that the "fiction question" is "colossal bullshit." Says the classmate:

"Frankly, almost every word of that novel is fact. Curtis wasn't on scholarship, she's half Jewish not Italian, and she never hooked up with anyone at Groton. Other than that, the thing is basically her diary. The haircuts, the roommate, the teachers...all true. Oh, there's one other difference I forgot--Curtis wasn't shunned for blabbing to a reporter--she was shunned for sending an article to the Washington Post about how sexist Groton was.
Anyway, I don't care if she publishes a memoir as fiction, but then to complain about people thinking it's true is ridiculous."

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