Kristen Roupenian, the author of the short story “Cat Person” that appeared in the December 11 issue of the New Yorker and subsequently went mega-viral, has received a book deal from Scout Press (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) to the tune of seven figures. The two-book deal, which will reportedly include the author’s debut story collection You Know You Want This — set for release in the spring of 2019 — as well as an additional novel, is said to have topped out at over $1 million in a bidding war.
Roupenian’s story is about a 20-year-old college sophomore named Margot who unwittingly begins a romance with a 34-year-old man named Robert, which culminates in a clumsy and thoroughly unpleasant sexual encounter for the heroine. The story quickly became a subject of hot debate, as it was reviled by a large subset of men but almost universally praised by women who were able to identify with the various subtexts of the story.
“Cat Person” was (not surprisingly) inspired by a nasty encounter with someone whom Roupenian, 36, had met online. She later told the New York Times that she wrote the story within a week of the encounter, but that the themes of “sex, gender, power, and consent” were something that she had been trying to write about for years.
“It’s not autobiographical,” she stated, “though many of the details and emotional notes come from life, they were accumulated over decades, not drawn from a single bad date.”
(Via The Hollywood Reporter)