A couple of weeks ago, I read--well, listened to--Life of M, Rachel Cusk's latest novel. It was my first Cusk, though I have previously bought her books with all intentions of reading them. (Hers was one of the volumes I purchased when I convinced myself I was going to read physical copies of all the Booker short-listed novels before the prize announcement. That's just not how I read. I read the shortest ones--which happened to include the winner and the book that should've won--and gave the rest to the neighborhood Oxfam once I remembered who I am.)

Why did I read this one? Part of it was timing. Macmillan sent me a copy of the audiobook at a moment when a Libby wait was taking longer than expected. And, I have to admit, I was intrigued by the scandal hovering over the book. The M of the title is an unnamed celebrity, the facts of whose life, it is impossible not to notice, bear a remarkable resemblance to actress Natalie Portman's.

The novel was fine. I neither loved nor hated it, though Cusk is clearly a wonderful observer of situations and relationships. In the end, the Portman of it all is the least interesting element. Maybe it's about the challenge of knowing oneself, perhaps its about friendship, perhaps it's about the loneliness of existence. Dunno! But judging by how many stories were written about the book, and how many of them featured a photograph of Natalie Portman, celebrity sells.

I've been thinking about this because this week I've been writing about Songs to a Handsome Woman, Rita Mae Brown's second book. It was a collection of love poems dedicated to a single individual. Rita Mae didn't name the object of her affection, though she did drop some clues in the text. I don't want to suggest that it was obvious to every single reader who she was writing about--though a contemporary audience in possession of an Internet search engine could solve the mystery in a matter of minutes--but it was clear that "the handsome woman" was an artist of some renown, a “movie star” who sometimes stands under hot stage lights. I don't think Rita Mae was trying to boost sales by associating herself with a celebrity. Instead, I really do believe she was utterly besotted and simply wanted to publish the poems that poured out of her, and perhaps to seduce the HW with the slim volume. (Who could resist such a fantasy.)

I suppose I should reveal the handsome woman's identity. It was Alexis Smith. Smith had been a modestly successful film actress in the 1940s, but in 1971 she wowed the New York theater world originating the role of Phyllis Rogers Stone in Stephen Sondheim's Follies. She won the Tony Award for best actress in a musical in her Broadway debut. (She also made a lot of people lose their composure. Suave late-night host Dick Cavett turned into a stumbling, bumbling schoolboy with a crush on a young teacher--major Macron vibes--when she was a guest on his show in August 1971.)

Looking through Rita Mae's archives, it's clear that her obsession with Smith was strong and long, but by 1997, when she published her memoir, Rita Will, she'd gotten to a zen place. She wrote, “Wearisome as my crush must have been for her and her husband … she bore it with good humor.”

There is one more beat to this story, I suppose. Many have suggested that Sudden Death, Rita Mae's 1983 novel set in the world of women's pro tennis, is a roman à clef about her relationship with Martina Navratilova. I'm not so sure. Certainly, it contains insights she gleaned from traveling on the circuit for a while, but Carmen Semana is not Martina.

Rita Mae is also the rare figure who is said to have written a roman à clef AND been the subject of one. Let me quote from the back-copy cover of Diane Salvatore's 1992 novel Love, Zena Beth: "[The protagonist] had been granted an interview with Zena Beth Frazer, the most famous--and notorious--lesbian writer in America. Notorious not just for the legendary pioneering vision of her work but for her sexy attractiveness, her outrageous wit, her in-your-face aplomb with the nation's media. Not to mention her sensational affair with a world-famous woman sports star."

But that, dear readers, is for a later chapter! (Please read that last sentence in the Gossip Girl voice!)

RECOMMENDATIONS: I was utterly charmed by Andrew Sean Greer's lovely comic novel Villa Coco. In life's one great choice of partisanship--Spain or Italy?--I chose Spain and have never regretted it ... but this book gave me pause. (What? Did you forget I'm European?) It's very funny, but the story of a young man learning from his maddeningly frustrating employer, a wildly energetic 92-year-old, is also very moving. It didn't hurt that I read it while I was in my childhood home trying to help my almost-92-year-old mother let go of the house she's lived in for nearly 70 years and decide to move into a care home!