There’s an in-depth investigation in the New Yorker today about a male novelist who has the same name as me and has (apparently) made a history of fabricating events about his personal life in order to inflate his reputation as a writer, so forgive me if I seem a bit shaken. It’s not every day one’s doppelgänger is taken to account, and it’s hard not to read an opening sentence like “Dan Mallory, a book editor turned novelist, is tall, good-looking, and clever,” without feeling like you’re next in line for disaster. I had a fairly unique name for a woman, and a relatively commonplace one for a man, and now the only other man who shares both is being exposed as a charming fraud, and if you don’t think that sums up a whole host of particularly transmasculine anxieties, baby, you’ve never transitioned from female to male!
My trans son said yesterday "we are the sum of our experiences; I like myself and so I value every experience I've had. " which was a lot of insight for a typical family dinner and was followed by his sister attempting to get him in a headlock, but still. Thanks.
Dan Mallory's third book will be about a novelist who can't decide whether to profusely thank or utterly destroy the internet writer who irreversibly altered his life with nought but a brief aside in a blog post.
Thank you for this piercingly truthful story.
My trans son said yesterday "we are the sum of our experiences; I like myself and so I value every experience I've had. " which was a lot of insight for a typical family dinner and was followed by his sister attempting to get him in a headlock, but still. Thanks.
Dan Mallory's third book will be about a novelist who can't decide whether to profusely thank or utterly destroy the internet writer who irreversibly altered his life with nought but a brief aside in a blog post.
"Nobody is asking me to apologize for anything, but I still want to most of the time." Put this on my tombstone please.
That was really insightful! Quite thought provoking
Also, you join David Mitchell of Mitchell & Webb fame for having to contend with a yet more (in)famous novelist messing up your Q score.