![]() It's a call she's able to make, financially, but one that would still have come at a significant cost. ![]() This was a book her publishers would have been focused on and planning for months, if not years, and last week's announcements were the first salvos in a campaign that would last until and beyond February 2024, when the book was due to be released.Ĭlearly, during all this preparation and planning, the notion that setting a creative work in Russia might be a cancel-level event did not feature.Īnd so Gilbert takes the fire and makes the call. Gilbert did not sit at home and design the cover of The Snow Forest on Canva over a cuppa. As The Atlantic wrote, it's "the literary equivalent of a Marvel movie", a huge, guaranteed blockbuster with a million-dollar investment, a robust marketing plan and number-one best-seller expectations. Publishing a Liz Gilbert novel is no niche undertaking. The question the publishing world is asking is, is this a choice she had to make? It's an understandable choice, and quite possibly the right one, given that Gilbert is a thoughtful writer, with a significant social media presence, and that she could never have outrun this criticism once it took hold. "I do not want to add any harm to a group of people who have already experienced and continue to experience grievous and extreme harm. "I'm making a course correction," she said, in her retraction video. Gilbert listened, deliberated, and acted. If this was the public fall-out, anyone familiar with the dynamics of an Internet pile-on will know that Gilbert's DMs, emails and personal feeds would have been wall-to-wall abuse for making such a "tone deaf" creative choice in 2023. Then Gilbert's Good Reads account was flooded with more than 500 One-Star reviews in protest. And to issue a book in February on the anniversary of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine is beyond atrocious." ![]() A typical comment read: "Very much disappointed that you decided to write about Russians when they are killing, torturing, terrorizing and raping my homeland at this very moment. The voices of Ukrainian readers were prominent. Because right now, Russia is waging an unjustifiable war with Ukraine, murdering and raping its citizens, displacing millions and destabilising the world. Now, it said, is not the time to write a romantic book about Russians in Russia. The pushback was immediate, fierce and undeniably united. "It will take you into the deepest realm of the Siberian tiger," she said, "and into the heart and mind of an extraordinary girl born into that world." In her first video, Gilbert explained that the plot was inspired by the true story of a Russian family who successfully hid in isolation in the Siberian wilderness for half a century. Full refunds would be issued to anyone who had already laid down dollars. This time, she was rescinding the invitation to buy The Snow Forest because it was being pulled from its publication date. ![]()
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