Régis Jauffret has done pretty well by basing some of his works of fiction closely on notorious events -- see my mention of his recent Claustria (based on the Josef Fritzl case), or his Severe, based on the Édouard Stern murder.
Now he has set his sights on another lowlife and the bizarre mess he got himself involved in: Jauffret's novel, La ballade de Rikers Island, came out yesterday (see the Seuil publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.fr) and its ostensible subject -- unnamed, but obvious to one and all -- has already sued.
Yes, it's in all the French papers (and none of the English-language ones -- come on guys, get your act together already): "DSK" [three-letter personal acronyms may be presidential in the US -- FDR, JFK, LBJ -- but in France they're a sure-fire indicator of full-of-themselves, larger-than-life(-at-least-as-seen-by-the-media) diminutive pseuds who should just be ignored (think: BHL)] sees -- quite correctly -- himself in the novel, and he's apparently not flattered. Dominique Strauss-Kahn -- amazingly, still a public figure of sorts -- has already had success once in suing an author (Marcela Iacub, for her fictionalized account of him in Belle et bête; see, for example the review in the New Statesman), so who knows what will happen here (DSK: pourquoi Régis Jauffret pourrait perdre son procès they consider in Le Figaro, for example).
For a (French) summary, see for example DSK attaque le roman du Sofitel en diffamation, but you can easily find your fill: there's (French) coverage all over the place. And, of course, the 'novel' has shot to the top of the Amazon (and presumably soon most other) bestseller charts.
Jauffret probably deserves to be sued -- for helping to bring (back/more) attention to this best-forgotten bum -- and I'm too annoyed by even pseudo-fact-based fiction to be fully in Jauffret's corner here (I can't imagine bringing myself to actually read this thing and trying to judge it on purely literary merits, but then I hardly think that is Jauffret's point ...), but I think all's fair in even the worst fiction: DSK should leave the guy alone and crawl back under his rock.
Yes, it's in all the French papers (and none of the English-language ones -- come on guys, get your act together already): "DSK" [three-letter personal acronyms may be presidential in the US -- FDR, JFK, LBJ -- but in France they're a sure-fire indicator of full-of-themselves, larger-than-life(-at-least-as-seen-by-the-media) diminutive pseuds who should just be ignored (think: BHL)] sees -- quite correctly -- himself in the novel, and he's apparently not flattered. Dominique Strauss-Kahn -- amazingly, still a public figure of sorts -- has already had success once in suing an author (Marcela Iacub, for her fictionalized account of him in Belle et bête; see, for example the review in the New Statesman), so who knows what will happen here (DSK: pourquoi Régis Jauffret pourrait perdre son procès they consider in Le Figaro, for example).
For a (French) summary, see for example DSK attaque le roman du Sofitel en diffamation, but you can easily find your fill: there's (French) coverage all over the place. And, of course, the 'novel' has shot to the top of the Amazon (and presumably soon most other) bestseller charts.
Jauffret probably deserves to be sued -- for helping to bring (back/more) attention to this best-forgotten bum -- and I'm too annoyed by even pseudo-fact-based fiction to be fully in Jauffret's corner here (I can't imagine bringing myself to actually read this thing and trying to judge it on purely literary merits, but then I hardly think that is Jauffret's point ...), but I think all's fair in even the worst fiction: DSK should leave the guy alone and crawl back under his rock.