Article wherein author claims a famous work is based on his life

October 23, 2022 9:50 AM

I remember bits of a private school, emerging awareness of sexuality, wealth, a young man who died early, a young woman who was a close friend... New York City? Italy? Someone whose parents ran in the same circles as a famous author, and a less famous author may have heard the story and made it into a best-selling novel or movie and subsequently became famous? I want to say it is _Call Me by Your Name_ by André Aciman but I can't find the article anywhere and now I am wondering if I dreamed it. I think the article is fewer than 2 years old.
posted by CCCC to Media & Arts (7 answers total)

Could it have been this article from Slate about a person who thinks the short story "Cat Person" was based on her life?
posted by airplant at 3:19 PM on October 23, 2022 [2 favorites]

Are you thinking of the podcast about Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis at Bennington? There was an article in Vanity Fair as well.
posted by betweenthebars at 5:34 PM on October 23, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: No, I think the author was in high school or college and was friends with another young man and young woman. I think there was a flirtation or relationship with him and the young man, and then the young man died unexpectedly.
posted by CCCC at 8:46 PM on October 23, 2022

Some of this sounds like pieces of Jean Hanff Korelitz's The Plot, but I'll admit it's a long shot.
posted by drdanger at 10:46 PM on October 23, 2022

One of the protagonists of Love Story is based on Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones.
posted by Pronoiac at 12:58 AM on October 24, 2022

Best answer: Jeffrey Eugenedis' The Marriage Plot: Love triangle, Brown, one character inspired by David Foster Wallace?
posted by Sweetie Darling at 5:47 AM on October 24, 2022

Response by poster: So I posted in the Call Me by Your Name Reddit forum and a mod told me the author of the article had posted their article in the forum and mods removed it because of its unsubstantiated claims. So, yes, it was that novel and movie, and, no, I cannot find the article anywhere. Maybe a legal team went after it? Remarkably successful, given that I can't find it anywhere on the whole Internet; I thought things lasted forever on the Internet!

I'm glad I'm not imagining it, and I wish I could read the article again but I don't know what search terms to use to find it or if it even exists online anymore.
posted by CCCC at 10:28 PM on October 24, 2022