Lauren Oyler on the Drama of Swiping and Scrolling
Editor’s Note: Read Lauren Oyler’s new fiction, “Discovery.”
“Discovery” is taken from Lauren Oyler’s forthcoming novel, Fake Accounts (available on February 2). To mark the story’s publication in The Atlantic, Oyler and Oliver Munday, a senior art director of the magazine, discussed the story over email. Their conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Oliver Munday: “Discovery” is an excerpt from your debut novel, Fake Accounts. This piece, and the novel more broadly, is concerned with the nature of conspiracy theories. Fiction has been tested by the surreality of the Trump era, during which movements like QAnon have gained popularity. Did you feel any pressure during the writing of this novel as a result?
I felt energized by the idea that fiction was being tested by the surreality of the Trump era, as I feel energized by all ideas I strongly disagree with! All, or almost all, novels take place in a historical moment, and there’s nothing so outrageous about this one that makes it particularly difficult to represent. The existence of bad fiction that fails to capture the moment doesn’t
