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January 13, 2023

‘Something that happens in fiction’: romance writer Susan Meachen’s fake death reminds us ‘the author’ is a construct

The revelation of the fake death of romance writer Susan Meachen has gone viral

2023 may have peaked early for those of us who are fascinated by online literary controversies and fakes: , , .

Two-and-a-half years ago, a Facebook post announced the death by suicide of the indie romance author Susan Meachen. But on January 6 this year, Meachen herself appeared on Facebook and Twitter, quipping 鈥渞eports of my death are greatly exaggerated鈥�.

It鈥檚 unclear exactly what happened - in part because the story revolves around accusations of fake news and fake identities, so it鈥檚 hard to pin down who said what. is that someone referring to Meachen as 鈥渕y mom鈥� used Meachen鈥檚 account to post to a private Facebook group with the news of her suicide in 2020. Then, at the start of the New Year, Susan Meachen posted in her own voice, saying that she was 鈥渋n a good place now鈥� and clearly 鈥� well, not dead.

Those in her immediate online circle are 鈥渉orrified, stunned, [and] livid鈥�, as the author Samantha Cole put it. 鈥淭o me it鈥檚 something that happens in fiction,鈥� . The rest of us are horrified, stunned 鈥� and riveted.

Several online commentators raised the idea of a financial motive, but it鈥檚 unclear whether Meachen profited from her fake death. While a 鈥渇riend鈥� urged Meachen鈥檚 followers to buy her then-latest book in the aftermath of her reported death (in October 2020) and in February 2021, someone who referred to Meachen as 鈥渕om鈥� urged followers to buy her books, after her 鈥渄eath鈥�.

I think the feelings this sparks in many of us are personal 鈥� a sense that a social contract has been profoundly violated; a relationship of trust betrayed.

Roland Barthes and 鈥榯he death of the author鈥�

Reading, after all, can be a deeply moving and even intimate experience. As we immerse ourselves in a book, we become intellectually, emotionally and physically involved. So it鈥檚 no wonder we feel we鈥檙e forging a personal connection with not just the book, but its author: the person who wrote the words we are reading, which seem to address us right where we are, as if the book were a personal communication.

Yet the person on the other side of this connection 鈥� the author 鈥� doesn鈥檛 know who we are: if we ever do meet them, we will almost certainly find our experience of the person is very different from our experience of the book.

Narratology 鈥� the field of literary theory that looks at the structure of stories and the way they are told 鈥� solved this problem back in 1961, when Wayne Booth invented the . The implied author is a construct, not to be confused with the real-life author 鈥� the person who stares out of the window when they should be writing, or shouts at her children when they interrupt her flow.

Narratologists embraced this distinction between the real-life author and the implied author because it enabled them to analyse stories as self-contained formal structures, separating out the text from the world. Anything on the textual side of the divide was the business of literary criticism: anything on the worldly side was something else 鈥� book history, or the sociology of literature.

The implied author is only knowable through the text, and any information we have about the real-life person who wrote the book is not relevant here.

So the connection we make as we read is not to a real person, but to a textual construct. The French narratologist and cultural critic Roland Barthes called this the 鈥減attern in the carpet鈥� in a companion piece to his influential 1967 essay . The author/reader relationship might feel personal, but the author we鈥檙e connecting to is just an optical illusion, conjured from textual features.

Indie romance and virtual relationships

The Susan Meachen affair brings the author back to life in more ways than one.

The indie romance community Meachen was part of depends on strong relationships between authors, readers, publishers, editors, and reviewers: a network built outside the structures of mainstream publishing. (鈥淚ndie publishing鈥� refers to books published without a mainstream publisher 鈥� , this often refers to self-publishing.)

Here, the boundary between the text and the world is utterly porous. Readers become authors; authors remain readers. Real-world events inspire fictional stories, and those stories circulate within the community in a way that creates or reinforces interpersonal bonds.

Alongside the capitalist economy of sales and royalties, a gift economy 鈥� similar to the one associated with fan culture 鈥� flourishes in the indie romance world.

Back in 2020, when someone announced on Facebook that Meachen had died by suicide as a result of online bullying, the indie romance community responded by dedicating an anthology of stories to her: , a collection of romance stories with a bullying theme (originally produced in response to a different bullying scandal). The proceeds of the anthology go to an anti-bullying charity; its dedication to Meachen transformed the fictional stories into a real-life gift to her.

Although not everyone who reads indie romances 鈥� or hears about Meachen鈥檚 story 鈥� is woven into the community鈥檚 interpersonal networks, digital media has transformed the author-reader relationship Booth and Barthes examined in the last days of print. (More recent work, like that of , explores the new post-print dynamics at play in Meachen鈥檚 story.)

We consume authors鈥� written words both in the form of fictional stories and in the form of blogs, tweets and Facebook posts that seem to offer a more personal connection to the real-life author, passing easily back and forth across the boundary between text and world, book and life.

Meachen鈥檚 story shows how easy this boundary is to cross, but it also shows, in how easy it was to stage her death and in the very real hurt and anger caused by her fake death, that the boundary still exists.

鈥淲e were only Facebook friends,鈥� Samantha Cole . 鈥淲e had never met in person. It鈥檚 very common in the book world.鈥� A spokesman for the medical examiner鈥檚 office in Polk County, Tennessee, where Meachen lives, told NBC it had 鈥渘o record of anybody by that name being reported dead going back to 2020鈥�.

More plot twists

An this week only further complicated matters. Meachen apparently said 鈥渁 Fiction Author鈥檚 job is to create New Realities which is what I did鈥�, and that 鈥渢he end of my life was a work of fiction鈥� which 鈥渢ranscend[ed] the pages of a book鈥�. But after the interview was published, 鈥減eople close to her on social media鈥� cast doubt on the identity of the person who answered Upstream鈥檚 questions. Meachen herself then denied it was her, too.

It鈥檚 a story that keeps on churning out plot twists and layers of real, implied, and performed identity.

For all the complexities and fuzziness, there鈥檚 a difference between the relationship we have with an author and the one we have with a friend. Reading fiction involves, as poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge , a willing 鈥� that is, consensual - suspension of disbelief: plot twists, fake-outs, and reversals are part of a game that we鈥檝e consented to play with the author.

When the twists, turns, and returns from the dead 鈥渢ranscend the pages of the book鈥�, they鈥檙e not part of the game of fiction any more. They鈥檙e real - and so are their consequences.

, Associate Professor in English Literatures,

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

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