The Desire Of The Woman

And they say that writing doesn't pay: Kristen Roupenian received $1.2 million dollars as an advance for her FIRST EVER BOOK, You Know You Want this after her story "Cat Person" went, as they say, viral. The book is, apparently, a bit of a hash and it's not selling terribly well. You can read a rather savage review by the infamous "Delicious Tacos" here; as with Clive James' infamous Princess Daisy evisceration, the criticism is significantly more accomplished than the source material. I could attempt a review of my own, but it would be stymied both by the excellence of Tacos' piece and the minor, but in this case relevant, fact that I have not read the book.

Which won't stop me from talking about "Cat Person" a bit, because I have read it and because it's free for all of you to read. The story is trash, little better than the vampires-and-billionaires vomit you see being eagerly scarfed-up by every middle-aged woman beneath every rental umbrella on every beach during every summer, and bearing the scars of a thousand table readings at a dozen writers' workshops --- yet, as Clive James reminds us, "It takes bad art to teach us how good art gets done." Therefore, let me flap this bug with gilded wings, &c., because there is a fascinating, and important, lesson buried right in the fetid guts of the thing.