Sitdown Sunday: The romance novelist who faked her own death

IT’S A DAY of rest, and you may be in the mood for a quiet corner and a comfy chair.

We’ve hand-picked the week’s best reads for you to savour.

1. A fake death in Romancelandia

A Facebook post in 2020 announced that romance novel author Susan Meachen had died. Only she hadn’t. Here, she explains her side of the story.

(The New York Times, approx 9 mins reading time)

Two weeks ago, to the shock of her online community, Ms. Meachen returned to her page to say she was back and now “in a good place,” and ready to resume writing under her own name. She playfully concluded: “Let the fun begin.” Other writers, seeing this, were not in the mood for fun. Describing deep feelings of betrayal, they have called for her to be prosecuted for fraud, alleging that she faked her death to sell books or solicit cash donations. They have reported her to the F.B.I. cybercrimes unit and the local sheriff and vowed to shun her and her work. Some have questioned whether she exists in real life.

2. Rikers Island

A harrowing account of the experiences of those who worked, visited and served time in the notorious prison.

(Esquire, approx 24 mins reading time) 

As the decades passed, this purported icon of penology became a forbidding place indeed. Detainees were thrown or jumped from the upper tiers to their deaths, so those floors had to be closed. Violence ruled. And over time, it became known by the jailed as the “House of Dead Men.” But the city stuck with Rikers as the place to leave the people society had deemed worthy of incarceration, the vast majority poor and of color. It was out of sight, hard for visitors to reach, closed, and foreboding.

3. The disturbing world of deepfakes

How one woman came across a photo of her face in an ad on an online Chinese marketplace.

(Wired, approx 12 mins reading time)

Eventually, after cropping the photo and plugging it back into reverse search tools and even a few catfishing sites, I found the source image: an Amazon ad for an outdoor camping tent. The original Amazon marketplace model slightly resembled me, but more like she was a cousin. (“We looked into this and have confirmed the photo on our site was taken in 2018, and the model in question is an Amazon employee,” said Betsy Harden, a spokesperson for Amazon.) The more the image was reposted, from site to site around the globe, however, the more it shifted and transformed to include elements of me and my likeness. 

4. Donkeys

Scientists are discovering surprising insights into the history of humankind through our relationship with these humble mammals, who have changed the course of history.

(BBC, approx 8 mins reading time)

Donkeys were so highly valued that they even featured in important rituals. “In both Egypt and Mesopotamia, donkeys were considered important enough to be buried with humans, in some cases, even with kings or rulers,” says Recth. “There are also examples of donkeys buried in their own right.”

5. The Montreal mafia murders

Adam Gollner writes about the Fargo-esque story of how a small-town Canadian couple became entangled with hapless hitmen, Mob moles and a murder plot.

(Vanity Fair, approx 38 mins reading time)

According to Italy’s anti-Mafia brigade, for decades Montreal has been “the key that turns the lock of America.” Since 1980 or so, the kingpins with the keys had been the Stitches, as the city’s Sicilian faction is known. Before then, going back to the era of Lucky Luciano and the so-called French Connection, Calabrians ran the books. But in the late 1970s, they’d been forced to hand things over after a blood feud with the Stitches. And wiping out Sollecito was part of a vendetta intended to reverse that defeat. As Sollecito’s murderer would later explain, “The goal of the Calabrians was to get rid of all the Sicilians, take the power, and prevent them from getting back on their feet.”

6. The Last of Us

The critically acclaimed series sees a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombiefied humans infected by the Cordyceps fungus. But could this happen in real life? A doctor looks into it. (For those who haven’t seen the show, this article contains spoilers)

(Vulture, approx 8 mins reading time)

In The Last of Us video game, the Cordyceps infection spreads partially via spores that travel through the air, necessitating that uninfected characters wear gas masks. As explained by Penn State University’s Dr. David P. Hughes, a Cordyceps specialist who was a scientific advisor on the 2013 video game, the fungus attaches as a spore to a host ant’s body, tunnels inside over the course of a day, and then creates an interior network so that nearly 50 percent of the ant’s body is fungal. (New research Hughes has published since Planet Earth aired clarifies that the fungi doesn’t infect the brain, but preserves it while invading and controlling musculature.) In the TV show, though, spores are abandoned — probably so the cast didn’t have to hide behind masks the whole time — in favor of mouth-tendrils, and a bite from an infected person can turn someone in as few as five minutes.

…AND A CLASSIC FROM THE ARCHIVES…

A 2021 interview with the legendary US musician David Crosby, who died this week at the age of 81.

(The Guardian, approx 15 mins reading time)

Crosby does a passable impression of Old Father Time. His hair is white and wispy as a passing cloud, his face profoundly contoured, his arms a patchwork of pink and purple. “My skin is like tissue paper, man. It tears or bruises. It’s just part of being old,” he says. And yet his voice when he sings and talks remains as boyish as ever – high-pitched, honeyed, usually enthusiastic, often giggly, sometimes querulous and boastful. Look at him and he could be 100, listen to him and he could be on the brink of manhood. “The only peculiar thing about my relationship with James is he’s the resident adult and I’m the kid,” he says. “I just never grew up.”

 Note: The Journal generally selects stories that are not paywalled, but some might not be accessible if you have exceeded your free article limit on the site in question.