Michelle Huneven recalls feeling “a sense of powerlessness and an utter lack of recourse” once she realized the novelist T.C. Boyle had based a character – whom she describes as a “talentless airhead poseur” – on her. Her advice for the fictionalized:
Go fetal. Give the writer a good talking to. Write a letter of complaint. Write your own book, your way. Keep it to yourself and seethe. You can sue, but the bar for libel lawsuits involving fiction is very, very high. And so is the cost. According to the libel lawyer Elizabeth McNamara, the fictionalized, like all litigants, sue for one of two reasons: because they feel wronged, or for money.
Your ex-girlfriend has put you in a story; you’re unmistakable—that’s your hair color, your tattoo, your speech impediment—only she’s made you a rapist. Or your cheating, lying ex-boyfriend has written a best seller featuring you, your family, and all your best lines; he’s sold the screen rights, he’s raking it in. Why shouldn’t you have a share of the pot?
“Since time, immemorial writers have used real life to inspire them and build upon their experience,” says McNamara. “But invariably, characters diverge from reality.”
There’s the rub. And there goes your case, out the window.
The Dish 