short Stories are not internet memes, so does not work the internet. But in december 2017, it came anyway: ”Cat person”, by the completely unknown author, Kristen Roupenian, published in The New Yorker, and suddenly, everyone talked about it. It quickly became the most read and shared story in the magazine’s history.
the Time was exactly right. The autumn had metoo-the movement exploded, and Roupenians story about 20-year-old Margot, who hit 34-year-old Robert seemed to perfectly capture something that was in the air. ”Cat person”, or ”Kattmänniska” in the Swedish translation, is not a story about abuse, or even about harassment, but about something much more svårgreppbart. It is a story about why Margot agrees to have bad sex and why Robert eventually calls her a whore. About who has power and how quickly it can change, even in a short, volatile relationship.
“I wrote the story in april 2017, as it was before metoorörelsen had reached the public consciousness,” says Kristen Roupenian.
She has just arrived to Stockholm, it is the last stop on her three-week long european bokturné. After the success she got quickly a book contract, and her novellsamlingsdebut came in Swedish last month. Twelve stories that revolve around relationships, power, and not infrequently violence.
Several of the Christian Roupenians short stories lend fresh from the horror genre. Photo: Marc Femenia
already in the air when she wrote ”Kattmänniska”. Trump had been selected to the president, and the recording where he utters the infamous words ”grab them by the pussy” had been a hot topic of debate.
In retrospect, I feel that some of the frustration and rage from it leaked into the story, ” says Kristen Roupenian.
” There were several things which combined. At the time I had also come out of a long relationship and started nätdejta again in the 35-year-olds. I had a picture of that I as an adult would be able to do it with any sort of calm and dignity, but I was actually completely taken aback. At one point I started to mess with someone I met online. It was really not at all as in the novel, but in the same way as in the story I had as well as invented a person on the basis of the details, the clues, the surface you see in a onlineprofil. When the man is not at all proved to be as I thought I was angry, frustrated, and reached to the end of an uncomfortable self-awareness. How did I get here? How could I deceive myself, tell a story for myself that was so incorrect? It was the seed of ”Kattmänniska”.
She gives a light and open impression, chosefritt – at this point accustomed to express themselves on complex issues. But when the story suddenly exploded on the internet, she was far from prepared.
the response – even when it is positive, which it is really not only was – is to get a perspective on yourself that is almost yrselframkallande. Sometimes I think that it is not intended that people should experience such a thing, if you understand what I mean?
Only now she has begun to gain perspective of the time in his life, ” she says, and has begun to be able to analyse the mechanisms. I ask if she’s been able to analyze what it was in the ”Kattmänniska” that caught so many.
” It helped people to reflect on themselves, I think. It was the young women that made the story viral, and had you asked them before if they had ever had sex with a guy just to be polite, they would probably have replied: ”No, of course not, that would be preposterous!” The short story broke down such a course of events bit by bit, and made it possible for them to see that they not only could, but also perhaps already had, made it.
the debate surrounding the comedian Aziz Ansari, which erupted only a month after the novel was published. A young woman is introduced for a date with Ansari, in which he is going to sex against her will – no direct criminal, but events in what is usually called ”the grey area”.
“I felt, perhaps unjustifiably, a little responsible,” says Kristen Roupenian when I ask if she herself paired the novel with Ansaridebatten.
– People talked about ”Kattmänniska” in a surprisingly nuanced way, perhaps because it was fiction. It was possible to recognise Margots pain without having to worry about what would happen with Robert, Robert was not real. In reality, when a woman tells me about this kind of events hurt, then turned to the issue immediately to her: ”But what do you want to happen with the man, do you mean that he should sit in prison?” It goes so fast, there is no room to have the real conversations.
– When it comes to the story of Aziz Ansari, I can imagine that the woman expected – perhaps partly because of the ”Kattmänniska” – that the internet was ready to have this discussion. But it turned out to be wrong.
Kristen Roupenian. Photo: Marc Femenia
the stories around similar themes about human relationships. But while the ”Kattmänniska” is almost uncomfortably realistic, as are many of the other stories, partly or completely surreal, often bloody, borrow, fresh from the horror genre. In the initial ”naughty boy” becomes a couple, the collective narration ”we”, obsessed by a singelkompis and forcing him into an increasingly derailed sadistic triangelrelation. In the ”Sardinburken” gets a young girl its födelsedagsönskan fulfilled – kalasgästerna fused together into a single monstrous body while she and her mother are watching. In the ”Scar you with fear” evokes the main character is a man to a magic formula and cut apart him piece by piece for their own gain.
” My own understanding of what a story is coming from the genres I grew up with: horror, science fiction, fantasy – but also fairy tales. It can be very enjoyable for me to write a story, I really understand the mechanisms of, a fairy tale, for example, as a natural form. Genreberättelsernas format has taught me to keep the structure even when I write short stories which are more psychological and realistic. ”Kattmänniska” have, in some way skräckfilmsstrukturen, where a girl goes into a house and you roar: ”don’t Do it!”
Violence is never far away in Roupenians short stories – sometimes, it is just below the surface, as the psychological terror in ”A nice guy”. Sometimes it is the actual focus of the story, as in ”Death wish” in which a woman persuades a recalcitrant husband to mistreat her.
Love is about tenderness and fragility, but may also have elements of violence
, to destroy, can be fully interconnected. Love is about tenderness and fragility, but may also have elements of violence, even if we often want to keep things neatly separated. Most of my stories is about the balance of power, and it is only when power is very unevenly balanced, as everything can be turned on all the way and start to be about control and, ultimately, violence.
Almost all the stories in the short story collection is about the relationships between men and women. Many of them she wrote when she herself was in a long relationship with a man, ” says Kristen Roupenian, but right now she lives with a woman. I ask if this is a coincidence.
Haha, I don’t know, probably is not a coincidence. Even if you are queer, you live in the patriarchy, and I don’t mean to queerrelationer is free from the messy and complicated power structures, they really are not. But there is an asymmetry in the dynamics between men and women that fits the stories better. There are other conditions in the book, a mother–daughter relationship, small glimpses of queer feelings, and sometimes I think that they are a bit easier, a small fragment of the escape routes.
Read also: DN publishes the short story ”Kattmänniska”
