A biting satire on cancel culture in the publishing industry

FICTION
A Complete Fiction
by R.L. Maizes
Text, $34.99

Desperation and rejection are a lethal combo. For a writer who’s been slogging it out for several years, writing novels that get rejected over and over again, she might find herself doing something she never thought she’d do. The relentless disregard of your tireless efforts can make one blind to ethics, to everything.

For P. J. Larkin, the protagonist of R.L. Maizes’ spritely sophomore novel, the nadir comes after an editor at a small publishing house announces his debut novel - one that sounds very much like the novel she has just written — and that he rejected.

Heedlessly, Larkin jumps online and accuses the editor of stealing her story. Her personal justification? “Big publishers came out with more books by men, and men’s books were reviewed more. Maybe stirring things up was what a woman had to do.” The two manuscripts are not materially identical, but both explore the impact and trauma of sexual violence from various perspectives. Within hours, the editor’s book is being cancelled online. His prospective publisher gets cold feet. Publication date is delayed.

Immediately, Larkin is inundated by offers from publishers. Life appears to be taking a turn. She might be able to stop driving for a ride-share company — a miserable day job she took on to fund her writing life.

Meanwhile, the editor, George, is trying his best to ignore the virtual pitchforks igniting his front porch. Things go from bad to worse when his own colleagues become suspect. How can he prove that his novel was decades in the making? How does any writer prove their work is entirely original, devoid of any influence?

The short answer is that they can’t. The long answer is A Complete Fiction — a rollicking, angst-infused series of dramas interrogating the structural powers within the book world. As the story unfolds, we learn Larkin is not as virtuous and innocent as she presents herself to be. In fact, her manuscript might have been inspired by the trauma experienced by her own sister, years ago. The exasperation of being repeatedly passed over is enough for her to abandon all morality.

As for George, the accusation of creative theft coerces him to reveal a past he’d rather forget. His new agent urges him to go public. “All the attention won’t hurt sales,” she says. Literary scandals are especially salacious plotlines — recent novels including Dominic Amerena’s I want everything and R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface revel in the private torture of public spectacles. But George knows the playing field. He doesn’t want to be another sausage churned through the media machine.

While his wife encourages him to follow his gut, his parents are nefarious and unsympathetic. The dynamics between father and son is painfully true to life — the intergenerational clash of ideologies regarding truth-telling, shame and mental illness comes uncomfortably alive.

Maizes elegantly explores the contemporaneous extremities of cancel culture within the publishing industry’s capitalist exploitative model. She does it with humility and empathy for her characters, parsing their actions with the tempered restraint of a kindly school counsellor. Questions of authenticity and ownership resound, but more pressingly, we are left asking who are the adjudicators of these actions?

While an underlying cynicism lurks behind the scenes, there’s enough humour and jocularity injected into the story that allows readers to come away with a sense of hope, and our characters forge a rigorous path towards forgiveness and self-redemption.

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