Life of M and the Rise of 'Biogossip' Novels
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Rachel Cusk published "Life of M," a novel whose protagonist "M" is widely reported to be based on Natalie Portman, with the book naming her breakout role in Léon: The Professional (she was 11 when cast) and later referencing Black Swan
- The piece coins "biogossip" as a literary micro-genre, tracing the lineage from Virginia Woolf's Orlando (inspired by Vita Sackville-West) and Lauren Weisberger's The Devil Wears Prada (reportedly based on Anna Wintour, who allegedly replied "I cannot remember who that girl is" upon hearing of the book) to Lisa Halliday's Asymmetry (linked to Philip Roth)
- Page Six dubbed Cusk's novel a "literary scandal," and rumors that Portman is unhappy with her portrayal "trickled down to the raggiest of tabloids," though the article notes that impression cannot be immediately gleaned from the book itself depending on interpretation of its final lines
- Unlike typical biogossip, which leans on brand-name signifiers like Dior, Armani, and Diet Coke, Cusk strips these away—using first-initial-only muses across novels including Second Place (Booker-longlisted) and Parade (2024 Goldsmiths Prize winner)
- The novel shifts the genre into a "meta register," deploying the collective pronoun "we" throughout to interrogate parasociality: Cusk writes that fame is "an ultimate entrapment in the self that is also a deliverance from it"
Why it matters: Biogossip's commercial model depends on recognizable real-world details that drive sales and film adaptations like Weisberger's Devil Wears Prada, which Women's Wear Daily reported sold to Doubleday for a reported $250,000 in 2002. Life of M has already crossed into gossip territory (a Page Six "literary scandal") despite Cusk stripping out those easy signifiers—a tension publishers may struggle to resolve as the genre's art-versus-commerce divide deepens.
Ask SkimNews
