She Wrote a Dystopian Novel. What Happened Next Was Pretty Dystopian.
Imagine a world in which all the men disappear from the planet in a single moment: Planes they were piloting are left unmanned (literally), their female passengers abandoned in midair; men in bed with their girlfriends mysteriously vanish; boys in the playground dematerialize before their mothers’ eyes.
The girls and women left behind are given no apparent reason for the sudden absence of half the world’s population. Now imagine another world — one in which an author proudly announces her forthcoming novel only to be attacked online for its fantastical premise.
Months before the book comes out, it is described on Goodreads as a “transphobic, racist, ableist, misogynist nightmare of a book.” On Twitter, people who have yet to read the novel declare that it’s their responsibility to “deplatform” it.
When one of the author’s friends, herself a writer, defends the book, she is similarly attacked, and a prominent literary organization withdraws her nomination for a prize for her own book.
