IRECENTLY READ A NOVEL, Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy, that, from the start, I understood to be a work of fiction. I was hooked by this gut-wrenching tale of a woman overwhelmed by the gruelling labour and absolute love that characterises early motherhood. Yet by the halfway mark, I was itching for my phone, because I desperately needed to know one thing: was it true?
Late April 2024: three things dominate the pop culture conversation. Netflix series Baby Reindeer is the “true story” – as per the title card – of comedian Richard Gadd’s experiences of being stalked by an older woman and sexually assaulted by an industry mentor. A bracingly self-lacerating attempt to relay the knotty psychological toll of that abuse, it quickly racked up tens of millions of views. But for some it wasn’t quite revealing enough. Soon, online sleuths were searching for the real story: apparently uncovering the actual identity of Gadd’s stalker, as well as that of the man who sexually assaulted him – a development that attracted huge controversy, wall-to-wall press
