In 'Romantic Friction,' 'The Fact Checker' the publishing world is fodder for fiction
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Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Today we've got two funny novels that take a peek inside the publishing world. And don't worry, they're not navel-gazy, state-of-the-books-industry type novels. Instead, they make the point that the people who make these books that we all read and enjoy are human.

In a bit, we'll talk to a writer who used to work at The New Yorker as a fact checker about his book about a fact checker. But first, Lori Gold's new book, Romantic Friction, is about a romance writer at the top of her game. Or maybe she's not. Maybe she's just past the peak of her prime because there's a new hotshot writer coming up right behind her. Gold talks to here now's Tiziana Deering about how the book was inspired by the highs and lows of the writing industry. That's ahead.

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In the new novel Romantic Friction, Sophie Wilde is a wildly successful fantasy romance author. She's been booked to headline a big reader's convention, Life Couldn't Be Better, except at her own book event, she finds herself overshadowed by a newcomer billed as the next Sophie Wilde. And as if that weren't enough, the newcomer claims that she is using AI to write books directly drawn from Sophie's.

So he goes on a rant, which of course winds up on social media and lands her in a firestorm of criticism. Again, the book is Romantic Friction. The author Lori Gold joins us in the studio. Welcome, Lori. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. So I have read the book, embraced it all, and I'm still going to ask you, is it an anti-AI book or not?

My goal and my aim was to show both sides, people who would be pro, people who would be con, both as writers and as readers. And so that was what I hoped to do. I didn't want to come out and dominate with my own feelings. I wanted the reader to read both sides and be able to make their own decisions. Okay, but now you can tell me your own feelings. So do. Well, my own honest feelings is I'm anxious and I'm worried and I'm scared. You know, I'm scared for my career.

my writer friends, and I teach creative writing, and I have so many students who are looking to break into this field. So if AI can come in and write books faster, cheaper, maybe better than we can, where does that leave us? So let's move now to Sophie Wilde in the book, this book, Romantic Friction, where she clearly has a, you know, oh, hell no approach to this. One of the things that struck me was you could have situated this story in any genre.

Right. It's kind of meta. It's a book about somebody who writes books and you pick fantasy romance. I mean, that is a very specific genre. So why is Sophie Wilde a fantasy romance writer?

So I was thinking of Sophie in some ways of what I love to consume. And I love big epic fantasies that often incorporate romance. Game of Thrones is my kind of one of my favorite TV shows of all time. And I was thinking of her creating that kind of universe because that universe has such rabid fans.

And romance readers are well known for being ravenous and they read every book that their favorite romance writer puts out. So to me, if I'm thinking about who is an author in the best position to have fans root for her and be behind her, it's an author with a huge following that the fans are used to embracing their author fully. And she's going to find out her fans maybe aren't.

so much behind her. Some of them are embracing this new AI author. Well, and this was fascinating. And this plot development I'm going to give here is early in the book, so I'm not spoiling the whole book. But we find out pretty quickly that this quote new Sophie Wilde named Hartley argues that she used AI to write Sophie Wilde-ish books because she wasn't getting enough Sophie Wilde from Sophie Wilde, which was a really interesting idea. It's like fairytale

Fan fiction meets RoboCop. Yeah, that's really true. And I think part of that is a little bit of a critique of our world of entertainment because we're used to getting things now, you know, whether it's an Amazon delivery or whether it is entertainment. You can go on Netflix and binge 20 seasons of Meredith Grey on Grey's Anatomy in a weekend if you've got that much time. God love you. We're used to getting things.

I love Meredith and I love Grey's Anatomy, but that would be a lot of time. But we're used to that. We're used to being able to click and get what we want. So if we can't get that from authors because it takes much longer to write a book, what does that mean? And are we just going to eventually get used to that and we want our entertainment now and instantly? So Sophie Wilde then in this situation, now she's got this conflict in this drama, right? And we have two other things going on here which are fascinating to me.

One is she is sort of almost the stereotypical lone wolf. And that's by her own admission that she's almost the stereotypical lone wolf. But she finds herself in a situation where she's with another, a large group of other women authors who want some interdependence that she doesn't want. And the gender dynamics there, especially in this romance fantasy writer space, felt pretty intentional. Yeah.

She's a self-proclaimed outcast. She is focused on her career and she spent her whole life to the detriment of friendships and family building this career she has. She is not bonding with the other authors because she feels like she doesn't need them. Her career and her fans are all she needs.

That was a purposeful storytelling aspect for me to work on because I felt like that's the kind of character who will be even more offended, feel even more indignation and even more betrayal when this career she's worked so hard for is about to be taken from her. Did you know Sophie Wilds in your own career?

So I will say Sophie is not me. She's not any author I know. She's an amalgamation of all of the authors I know who are struggling really hard to do this career. And I do know some who are quite successful and they are rightly very protective of their career and how they present themselves and what they present to their readers. And you are. You're now in the public eye when you get to that level. So she's a little bit of pieces of everybody I know in the industry as a whole. Yeah.

So last other sort of theme here is the social media theme, right? We first sort of trip that trip wire when she makes a rant. And as she's ranting, you just know, right? You just know somebody's videotaping this, right? You just know it's going to wind up on social media. But there is this engine to the fame, especially as this book conference happens, right? That completely exists in the world of social media. And you paint, my word, not yours, right?

somewhat cynical picture of the way books that seem to go viral are in fact very heavily manipulated to be popular in this new social media world. Do you feel cynical about that?

You know, I will admit that I do feel cynical about that. And I think it's partly a fact that there are so many books published. I think the statistic from the last year is something like 500,000 traditionally published books and 2 million a year total, which then includes self-published books. That's a lot of competition. How do authors stand out in that world? When you're talking about the traditionally published world, you're looking at...

publishers who buy a lot of books, and they frankly can't support them all at the same level. So some authors are going to get more support. And for those who don't know, that means more marketing support in terms of an add-in Times Square on a billboard. It's a book tour that they're going to put you on. It's a festival they're going to send you to. You get more support at different levels of your career. So that is an inherent fact of the industry that I think many people don't know. And as part of that is

Publishers do push you on social media. There are paid influencers. I don't think that comes as a surprise to many people that influencers get paid. Many influencers, not all, but many do get paid in some capacity, whether it's a sponsorship or actually monetary, to support any kind of product. And a book is a product and it is marketed that way as well. So it's hard to not have some sort of cynicism on that.

The other side of that, which I do hope comes across in the book as well, is there are people who are just love books. And they're this bookstagram community that they do. Many people do put it out on their own and they are very supportive of authors and books. So there's this push pull between that cynicism of it and, frankly, the dollars and cents behind it. But then there are the fans who really do just love books and are trying to promote books. And I wanted to show both of that.

So you say in your afterword that this book is, quote, an open love letter to an industry that has the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.

Somewhere in this book, in Sophie's highs and lows, do we see echoes of your own? Absolutely. Everything that happens in this book, whether it's to Sophie or other authors or other experiences that are related in the book, is either directly from my own experience or from authors I know well who have shared their private experiences with me. And again, everything has changed, so it's not exactly someone's experience. But sure, there is that, and I have high days and I have low days, as I think any author does at every level. What's a low day?

So a low day can happen in lots of different ways. But I actually will pull for something from the book that is from my own experience. And it's Sophie's experience. She discusses being at a festival and a bookseller is in front of her and a bookseller is flipping through a book that is very much in Sophie's style, a fantasy romance.

And the bookseller says something along the lines of, oh, yeah, I read that kind of stuff, fantasy or romance. Well, I don't really read it. I listen to it on audio, you know, when I'm unpacking the dishwasher or on the treadmill when I don't really have to pay attention. And that was something that was said to me at a festival from a bookseller directly about my genre at that time, which was young adult contemporary fantasy. That was a hard decision.

day and hard moment. And I don't know what the response to that is. But you have to kind of pick yourself up and move on and take that with you and maybe put in a book one day. And how about a high day?

Hi, Days Today. Being here talking with you and talking with you about a book that I really feel like my heart is in. And I really love this book and I really am proud of what I did. And frankly, to counter the cynicism that I just discussed, a traditional publisher of HarperCollins published this book that shows the industry warts and all. That's not something I actually thought would happen as I was writing this, to be honest. I wasn't sure if this was going to get to be a published book because it does expose kind of the good and the bad of the industry. Yeah.

Lori Gold, her new novel is Romantic Friction. Lori, thanks. Thank you so much for being here. This is great. These days, there's a lot of news. It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community.

On this week's Wildcard Podcast, Weird Al Yankovic says there's something funny about being professionally weird. I think people realize...

you know, Weird Al is almost ironic because I'm like one of the more normal people in showbiz, I think. I'm Rachel Martin. Weird Al is on Wildcard, the show where cards control the conversation.

Look, we get it. When it comes to new music, there is a lot of it, and it all comes really fast. But on All Songs Considered, NPR's music recommendation podcast, we'll handpick what we think is the greatest music happening right now and give you your next great listen. So kick back, settle in, get those eardrums wide open, and get your dose of new music from All Songs Considered, only from NPR.

Austin Kelly's new novel, The Fact Checker, doesn't just get into the inner workings of the magazine writing industry. It also gets into the guts of another infamously shady and petty industry, the farmer's market. Here's NPR's Scott Simon. A fact checker at a respected magazine didn't expect the Mandeville Green piece about a farmer's market in New York City 2004 to be an oozer, as he puts it.

"'It's a food piece,' the unnamed narrator narrates. "'It's not going to kill anyone.' "'But the fact-checker reads that a tomato grower named Sylvia "'refers to nefarious business at the market.'

You find Sylvia at Ask What She Means, and that's when the quest for real facts begins. The Fact Checker is the first novel from Austin Kelly, a former New Yorker magazine fact checker, in fact. He joins us from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you. You'll be fact checking this interview, won't you? Yeah, I hope not. And an oozer? Yeah, an oozer. I would say...

One that you're not quite sure where things are going or what's solid and what's not. I'm going to use that a lot from now on. Tell us a little more about how the story unfolds. There is something that gets kind of handed to him, isn't there? Well, he has this story, and it's a story, as you said, he doesn't expect to be a big deal because it's a...

a farmer's market story, and he's usually busy working on things that are about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan. So this is a sort of a lighthearted piece, but when he gets to this one line that he feels is a negative portrayal of the farmer's market, he suddenly gets kind of fixated on that. And when he meets Sylvia, this farmer who supposedly said those negative things, he

He gets fixated on her. Then when she disappears and doesn't really give him any explanation, the rest is trying to find out what really happened to her. Sylvia Grosje.

Is it Ramapoho tomatoes? How do we pronounce it? Ramapoho, I think, is the way I pronounce it in my head. And I believe that's what they said at Rutgers, where those tomatoes were actually developed originally. As I found out, because I thought, oh, he made this up. But no, it was developed at Rutgers. That's an actual New Jersey tomato, isn't it? Yeah. And every year they have, Rutgers has a tomato festival I like to go. I've gone a couple of times.

I have to ask, did you ever do anything remotely like this as a fact checker at The New Yorker? No, not really. I mean, there are some kernels of truth in there, little bits and pieces from the real experience of checking facts, which I hope come across to the reader. Oh, yeah. But what makes the fact checker suspect that the nefarious business at this farmer's market isn't just buying tomatoes at Costco and reselling them for three times the price?

This fact checker, this narrator, is particularly skeptical, essentially. So at one point in the novel, he thinks maybe there's a drug sales going on at the farmer's market or something is being sold that shouldn't be. I thought the farmer's market was kind of an interesting setting because we think of that food as being so pure and so straight from the earth,

that it would be interesting to have a character be even skeptical of that. The fact checker and Sylvia meet, they drink, they dine, they become involved. Yeah, I think that that confusion between whether or not this character is sort of

interested in this woman and curious about her or whether he's really trying to find the heart of the truth in this story is something that he's not quite sure about and that he kind of gets mixed up about as well. And I think, um,

I think it's both. He wants to know Sylvia better, and he's very idealistic, and he sees something idealistic about this tomato farmer, and he's interested in her. So he's kind of pursuing both, and they get compounded, I guess. Could I get you to read from your novel the note that Sylvia leaves on the fact-checker's pillow? Sure. The note said, Dear Fact-Checker, Sorry to leave so early, but I have to take care of some things. You were right about that.

Anyway, thanks. I'll call you in a few days. XO, Sylvia. P.S. Yes. Let's do it. Let's do what? Yes, let's do what? I mean, that's the big question that I think he wants to pursue at the end, and he doesn't know what exactly she meant by that. Yeah. Can you share with us a fact that you checked years ago at The New Yorker that still kind of astounds you?

Well, right in the very beginning of the novel, I mentioned...

to Shaquille O'Neal's girlfriend. And this came from a real profile of Shaquille O'Neal. About the tattoos, as I recall. Yeah. She had to take his shirt off to check the spelling of the tattoo that was right next to his navel, which I think was Lil Warrior. And I remember it very well because I could hear him kind of snickering in the background. And meanwhile, she was checking not only the spelling, but the punctuation, what was capital, what was the lowercase.

So we were thorough. I bet that's memorable for him, too. Are fact-checkers, as we learned from this one, detectives at heart? Yeah, I think when I worked as a fact-checker, I always thought there was a little bit of detective work that you would do every day. And I always thought that that was an interesting and fun part of it. I thought the fact-checker was kind of a funny version of the classic detective, a little bit more nerdy.

Is this fact checker an alter ego for you? I hope not, but probably. I mean, there are many ridiculous things about him and silly lapses. I hope I don't have those, but probably I do. We never know. Austin Kelly, his new novel, The Fact Checker. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much. What a pleasure.

That's it for this week on NPR's Book of the Day. If you want more, you can sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash newsletter slash books. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. The podcast is produced by Chloe Weiner and edited by Megan Sullivan. Our founding editor is Petra Mayer. The show elements for this week were produced and edited by Adriana Gallardo, Barry Gordimer, Michael Scotto, Todd Muntz, and

Yolanda Sanguini is our executive producer. Thanks for listening.

Are you like me? Do you love picking the best and worst looks on the red carpet? Well, for the first time ever, The Met is dedicating their annual gala to the history of black fashion. So from where I'm sitting, the looks could be really good or not. I mean, will someone wear a do-rag when they shouldn't? Let's get into the backstory of black fashion and rate the best and worst looks together. This week on the It's Been a Minute podcast from NPR.

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