The Celebrity Cult

In my writing group last week, we got onto the topic of how the cult of celebrity has pervaded our society. And the literary world is no exception. Routinely, books 'supposedly' written by celebrities hit the bestseller lists, in both fiction and non-fiction. And even more recently we seem to find that bestselling novels often feature celebrity characters, at least historical celebrities. There are recent or current books out featuring 1) Sigmund Freud, 2) Edgar Allan Poe, 3) Longfellow, 4) H. P. Lovecraft, and 5) Charles Darwin as characters. It occurred to me that even the monster Dan Brown book, The Da Vinci Code, features a celebrity scandal…about Jesus Christ. It makes me wonder why my short vampire stories featuring Jesus and Judas Iscariot didn’t sell better.

Personally, I rather hope the celebrity craze dies down soon, in literature as well as in the everyday world. I’ve yet to find a single truly compelling novel featuring a celebrity character or celebrity scandal. But maybe it’s just me. Sometimes it seems that way.