I wrote a version of my WWYK article a year ago, but I wasn’t satisfied with it, and I let it sit for months until I could find the time to think about it and tweak it until I was satisfied. And now that I’ve finally published it, there is a best-selling book out that seems to stand WWYK on its head. Or does it?

Rich and Pretty is about women’s friendships, it’s getting raves from women reviewers, and … it was written by a man (Rumaan Alam). For example, an interview with the author on the Millions says,

Early readers of Rich and Pretty have remarked how well you, a MAN (gasp!), capture these two female characters and their long-term friendship. I concur; the accuracy here is one of the novel’s great pleasures.

I read about it first in Time, which also noted this paradox. But the author has a ready answer, which, as you’ll see, is an excellent illustration of WWYK.

Rumaan Alam has one of the summer’s biggest literary sensations with Rich and Pretty—a first novel that, like many of its kind, draws upon the author’s own experience. “I think it’s a not uncommon experience for gay boys, young men, and even older men to spend a lot of time in the company of women,” Alam says. “When I was a little boy, all of my pals are girls, and when I went to college the same held true, and then when I left college and went into the work force, I worked at fashion magazines, and it’s a place where women really run the show.” (Emphasis mine.)

In an interview at NPR, the author goes on to note that his experience as a man of Indian descent just wasn’t what he wanted to write about.

WERTHEIMER: There’s an old notion that writers should write about what they know. And I’m wondering what you think about that. Is it useful when you’re trying to see yourself in your characters? Or did you do that?

ALAM: Certainly, many writers have been able to wring beautiful work out of the stuff of their own lives. And I just did not feel that that was something that interested me. Being a writer of Indian descent in particular, I felt a desire to avoid the pressure to deliver something that adhered to some larger critical notion of what it is that writers of Indian descent ought to write about in this country.

That said, there is a lot of my experience in this book. I’m somebody who—you know, I’m gay. I was a gay, I was gay as a young man. And so my friends tended to be girls on the playground. I went to a liberal arts college where most of my classmates and, indeed, many of my professors were women. I worked in fashion magazines where my bosses and my colleagues were women. I worked in the advertising business. And most of my clients and most of my colleagues were also women. So in some ways, this is writing what I know. It’s just that I’m so not present in the finished work.

Rumaan Alam makes a very good case for writing what you know. These are all interesting articles, and they’ve made me want to read the book. How about you?

Tweet: In which we revisit the Principal of Write What You Know.
Tweet: A man, writing in a woman’s POV, is getting rave reviews. WWYK?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I have not received any compensation for writing this post. I have no material connection to the brands, products, or services that I have mentioned. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”