Followers takes lead in skewering reality TV
Summer page-turner envisions what goes on behind the lens
Vancouver-based YA writer Raziel Reid is back with a new summer page-turner titled Followers.
The book sees a naive teen girl land smack dab in the middle of Hollywood and the very unreal — on so many levels — world of reality TV production and fame.
If you can name one of Lisa Vanderpump’s restaurants or hum a bit of Money Can’t Buy You Class, you will be entertained by this fun, saucy and gossipy book.
Like Reid’s first novel When Everything Feels Like the Movies — the winner of the Governor General’s Award for English-language children’s literature — and his second outing Kens, Followers likes to push limits and buttons.
Postmedia tracked down Reid to ask him about his new book and other stuff.
Q This book feels like a tellall about The Hills meets the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Why did you want to build this world?
A On the second season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, one of the husbands killed himself.
The illusion popped and it became too real.
He left behind a young daughter, and I started to wonder what she’d be like as a teenager, how the psychology of growing up in front of the camera would influence her.
I saw her becoming a master of deception.
And that’s the concept that spawned this story.
Q Who do you think this book is speaking to?
A For a gay man, I sure think about women on the beach a lot.
I was inspired by my favourite chick-lit books like Crazy Rich Asians and Gossip Girl.
Escapism is a luxury we can all afford and I was determined to write a page-turner for the summer.
Q Do you have a favourite reality show or reality TV star?
A I stan (slang for someone who is a super fan) Lisa Vanderpump from Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. I lived down the block from her West Hollywood lounge Pump while I was writing this book. I saw her husband, Ken Todd, on the street one day and I said, “Hi, Dad.” He looked like he’d heard it before.
Q In some places, you are mentioned as being controversial. What do you think that means? What have you done to gain that moniker?
A Just a born bitch. I was a clown in school who always got kicked out of class for saying or doing the wrong thing. I was constantly shamed for my ideas. I think it prepared me for my career.
I know now that I was born subverted because Canada deserves authors who are provocateurs and willing to flip the table on society like Teresa Giudice screaming, “You’re a prostitution whore!” at Danielle Staub on Real Housewives of New Jersey and literally flipping a table.
Someone’s gotta be that queen and Atwood isn’t going to live forever.
Q You had a lot of success, including winning the Governor General’s Award, with your first novel 2014’s When Everything Feels Like the Movies. What do you think is the biggest change for you, the writer, from then to now?
A The continuing impact of winning the Governor General’s Literary Award is confidence. I wasn’t raised by a father who lifted me up, and as silly as it sounds, The Crown stepped in and helped me to believe in myself. I’d like to be reincarnated as a strand of the Duchess of Cambridge’s hair.
Q Your new book is very much rooted in the idea of instant gratification, whether it is social media likes or a shopping spree. What makes you happy in the moment?
A English Bay sunsets.
Q I’m guessing in the book Hillsborough church is supposed to be the celebrity packed, and some might say culty, actual Hillsong Church and Sean’s dad with his pit bulls in the basement is a kind of a nod to (ex-NFL star and disgraced dog owner) Michael Vick. Did you have concerns taking shots at celebrity totems?
A Celebrity totems, I love that. I’m pretty ruthless in the way I take aim at pop culture and write with the severed limbs of celebrities. I followed Meghan Markle while I was writing Followers and she inspired all my sociopathic narcissist characters.
Q Your last novel Kens was kind of Mean Girls but with gay boys. This new book is back to a lot of mean girls and some mean boys. What is it about youth and bitchiness?
A We’re drawn to the mean girl because she knows, if only subconsciously, how the real world works. She knows there’s a ranking order and that only one can be queen.
And she knows it’s the queen’s responsibility to uphold the standard of our society even if she herself is oppressed by it. Without her, no one knows who they are.
Q You are a Winnipeg native. When did you move to Vancouver?
A I landed in Vancouver a decade ago. Despite not having any family here, I soon found my own tribe.
I became a part of The Cobalt Family, a group of drag queens and queer artists who partied at The Cobalt with the Queen of East Van, Isolde N. Barron, as our house mother. I came of age in the dressing room.