T.C. Boyle’s East is East includes a character called “La Dershowitz,” a young writer of high ambitions and meager talent who writes restaurant reviews. At the Paris Review blog, Michelle Huneven reveals that the character was clearly based on her: She knew Boyle, who called her “La Huneven”; she wrote restaurant reviews; she was an aspiring novelist. Huneven describes the pain of recognizing herself in the “talentless airhead poseur trying to break into the hallowed world of literature,” the ”sense of powerlessness and an utter lack of recourse.” And yet people who recognize themselves in their friends’ work should remember that “‘You’ve been fictionalized’ actually means, ‘You’ve been exaggerated!’ (Or downplayed!).”
