Right now, it feels like there’s a real boom in out queer famous women. Sometimes, it feels impossible to keep up with those who’ve recently come out as queer. But many of us remember the olden days when that wasn’t the case. Author Celia Laskey explores that time in her new romance, Cover Story.
Cover Story focuses on Ali, a woman who has reluctantly worked in PR for the better part of the last decade. She’d rather write stories than care about celebrities and their dating lives, but she’s accepted this is how things are. At the start of the story, it’s been a year since her longtime (and only-ever) partner died, and she’s still deep in the trenches of grief. Her loss has permanently altered her, and she’s fighting to figure out how to be this new version of herself when she is so deeply unhappy with so many elements of her life.
The book takes place in 2005, and it’s hard to wrap my mind around the fact that a 2005-set book can be considered “historical fiction” because it was twenty years ago. How is that even possible? That’s the thing about getting older; sometimes it can be difficult to reconcile that “history” becomes more present in your consciousness. I have real, concrete memories of 2005. It’s clear Laskey does too.
Laskey has a strong handle of how she recreates 2005 in the novel. It would be easy to veer into stereotypes of the time, and sometimes, she’s toeing that line. To recreate a time that likely feels fairly present for her readers while also giving those who may not have been as aware of the cultural landscape isn’t an easy job. But overall, Laskey is successful in her attempt. I don’t know if I would want to write a time in American history that is so easy to pull up for a large swath of the adult population. As a person who’s really into mid-aughts culture, this is a hard time to replicate. Try as they might right now, if you weren’t there, you won’t quite get it.
Because Ali works in PR, Laskey leans into using headlines and articles from gossip blogs as a storytelling device. This was at the beginning of the gossip blog boom, and it was brutal, especially for young female celebrities. We’re talking Perez Hilton using MS Paint to draw cum droppings on Lindsay Lohan’s face era. Obviously, she can’t include the crude photos, but otherwise, Laskey absolutely nails the ruthless energy of the media at the time.
Laskey also does some of that time work with the character’s pop culture references. One moment that stands out is Ali telling her dad she’s watching the show Bones, a show that has become one of my go-to comfort shows.
At its core, Cover Story is a story about representation. Ali is a lesbian who has been out since the 90s, and a big part of her job is telling celebrities to stay in the closet. She spends most of the story wrestling with the role she plays. You can tell she hates herself for being part of the machine that has to keep people in the closet. She doesn’t think it’s fair that people are forced to choose between being themselves and working.
Ali came out at a time before Ellen. She intimately understands the way that having out female celebrities could change the lives of so many young women who desperately need to see versions of themselves. In Ali’s mind, things should have changed drastically in the ten years since she came out. And while there were some advancements, they weren’t enough. At least, not for her anyway. But how can she expect things to get better if she’s one of the people keeping stars in the closet?
Her moral dilemma is incredibly present when she first meets Cara, an up-and-coming starlet who needs to be taught to put herself back into the closet a little bit. But for Cara, doing so is entirely unfathomable. Why should she have to compromise herself because she wants to star in a blockbuster film? Unfortunately, the young actress is going to be playing straight — and her co-star is a mega hottie. As much as Ali understands and agrees, she knows they’re going to have to play the game if they ever want things to change. It isn’t going to be easy, but eventually Cara begins to not only understand but play the game.
Cara’s arc over the course of the story felt familiar, but not in a bad way. I enjoy stories where someone enters the entertainment industry green and slowly begins to understand that at the end of the day, it’s not really just about the work. Cara is reluctant to change her ways, but as the stakes begin to rise, she really begins to open her eyes to what it takes. And while it doesn’t fully harden her, she definitely has some hard lessons to learn. You can tell she takes them to heart, especially the ones from Ali.
Because of the central conflict of the book, it makes sense that you couldn’t put it in the present day. There is a very small window of time in which the story could be successful, and Laskey gets right in there. By 2005, it felt like we had made some progress; Ellen had come out on the other side of the backlash and was hosting a daytime talk show. Rosie had come out, but she wouldn’t be back on TV for another year. Cara also makes a good point about The L Word being on the air, and if there could be a whole show about lesbians, why couldn’t she be one? If you set it a few years in either direction, it simply wouldn’t work.
Reading Cover Story, I couldn’t help but wonder what things would have looked like if more celebrities had outed themselves in the mid-aughts. What would things have looked like if we got openly queer Kristen Stewart from the beginning of the Twilight franchise? It’s sad we’ll never know, but Laskey’s reimagining of the past provides new possibilities.
Cover Story by Celia Laskey is out now.
