# Real Living People In Novels
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 6, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911 "2012-02-06T00:21:58Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/1 "2012-02-06T00:21:58Z")
While real (dead) people often appear in historical novels and those with historical settings how often do real living people appear in novels?
I’ve seen plenty of times real people are mentioned in novels (ie someone seeing a movie poster with Brad Pitt for example), or characters who are thinly disguised real people. In addition is internet fiction real people do show up as lawyers are unlikely to read them.
The only ones I do know was one thriller I saw the back cover of only where Bush the Greater gets shot and wounded and Quayle has to assume the presidency and another one where Yeltsin dies in office.
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### Author:  [@MsWhatsit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsWhatsit)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/2 "2012-02-06T00:25:48Z")
Neal Stephenson tends to do this a lot. In _Cryptonomicon_, he had Alan Turing, Douglas MacArthur, and Göring, off the top of my head. Possibly a couple others I’m forgetting.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/3 "2012-02-06T00:44:36Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#):
>
> Neal Stephenson tends to do this a lot. In _Cryptonomicon_, he had Alan Turing, Douglas MacArthur, and Göring, off the top of my head. Possibly a couple others I’m forgetting.
Well I was talking about novels that had real living people-Turing, Goring, and MacArthur were all dead when the _Cryptonomicon_ was written.
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### Author:  [@Tarwater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tarwater)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/4 "2012-02-06T01:07:49Z")
_Underworld_ by Delillo has Ralph Branca (who’s still alive), Bobby Thompson (who died after the novel’s publication), and Frank Sinatra (who also died after the novel was published) playing major roles. It also has J. Edgar Hoover, Lenny Bruce, and a handful of other famous 20th century men, who were all dead by the time the novel was conceived and written, but who have major fictionalized roles in the narrative.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/5 "2012-02-06T01:11:23Z")
The (universally panned by critics and mostly ignored by readers) sequel to Forrest Gump, _Gump & Co._, did this with literary cameos by Tom Hanks and others associated with the movie. (It was to match the tone of the movie, which was way different from the tone of the original novel _Forrest Gump_.)
Tom Wolfe’s novel _A Man in Full_ had scenes that included some notable real life and (at least at the time) living Atlanta residents, but none were important to the plot, just name dropping.
Kurt Vonnegut inserted himself into several of his novels.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/6 "2012-02-06T01:58:22Z")
> [@Sampiro](#):
>
> Tom Wolfe’s novel _A Man in Full_ had scenes that included some notable real life and (at least at the time) living Atlanta residents, but none were important to the plot, just name dropping.
Really? Who? I’ve read the book three times - it’s one of my favorite books. I never knew any of the characters in it, even the most minor ones, were real people.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/7 "2012-02-06T01:59:22Z")
Robert Coover’s **The Public Burning** had Richard Nixon (still alive at the time) as one of the main characters.
**Replay** by Ken Grimwood has one of the characters married to Dustin Hoffman in an alternate timeline, and also mentions Steven Speilberg.
On stage, **[Red, White, and Maddox](http://www.ibdb.com/production.php?id=3452)** had Georgia Governor Lester Maddox as the lead character and ridiculed him mercilessly.
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### Author:  [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/8 "2012-02-06T02:02:15Z")
Prince Harry is a major character in the science fiction/alternate history [Axis of Time](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axis_of_Time) series.
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### Author:  [@charmstr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/charmstr)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/9 "2012-02-06T02:17:34Z")
I’m surprised no one has mentioned _Shoeless Joe_ by W. P. Kinsella (adapted to film as _Field of Dreams_), where one of the major characters is J.D. Salinger. Maybe because that was changed for the film?
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/10 "2012-02-06T02:30:45Z")
Howard Chaykin’s **American Flagg!** comics had Prince William as one of the characters, though since it was set in the future, he had aged.
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### Author:  [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/11 "2012-02-06T02:59:38Z")
In _American Psycho_, there are several scenes where Patrick Bateman (the narrator) encounters famous people, including Tom Cruise, Bono, and some others I can’t remember.
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### Author:  [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/12 "2012-02-06T03:10:37Z")
Philip Roth has included himself in some of his books as well as other living historic figures. He also included his family, however I don’t know if this was a made up family or he included real names. _The Plot Against America_ has the Roth family in an alternate 1940s.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/13 "2012-02-06T03:20:54Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#):
>
> Howard Chaykin’s **American Flagg!** comics had Prince William as one of the characters, though since it was set in the future, he had aged.
Prince William was also a character in S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse series.
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### Author:  [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/14 "2012-02-06T04:02:40Z")
Frederick Forsyth has frequently featured well-known living people in his novels. In _Icon_, [Prince Michael of Kent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Michael_of_Kent) had a prominent, if brief role. _The Dogs of War_ features [Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chukwuemeka_Odumegwu_Ojukwu) in several chapters, and Charles deGaulle has a part in _The Day of the Jackal_. Interestingly, while deGaulle is mentioned by name, the other two are referred to only as “the English prince” and “the general”. Forsyth may have feared legal or political ramifications from naming them specifically, but he left no doubt about who he was portraying.
James Michener talked some about the difficulties inherent in naming living people in a novel - at least for an American author. When an author does this, he is setting himself up for a lawsuit from people that consider their name to be intellectual property. If someone does not like the way he/she is portrayed a suit for libel or defamation can cost a writer, or more likely the publisher a lot of money. Michener, in writing his novel _Space_ had included some kind of skulduggery by the “junior senator from Texas”. Since that person was still alive, the publisher adamantly refused to print that part of the book until Michener re-wrote it substituting the fictional state of Franklin and a non-existant politician.
SS
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/15 "2012-02-06T04:45:48Z")
Jim Williams from _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ died in 1990 and the book was published in 1994.
But apparently [The Lady Chablis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Chablis) is a real person and still alive.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/16 "2012-02-06T05:16:16Z")
Stephen King’s _The Dead Zone_ briefly features Jimmy Carter and mentions Sargent Shriver in passing, during the 1976 primaries.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/17 "2012-02-06T05:24:14Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> Jim Williams from _Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil_ died in 1990 and the book was published in 1994.
>
> But apparently [The Lady Chablis](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Chablis) is a real person and still alive.
Except that wasn’t a novel.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/18 "2012-02-06T05:37:08Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#):
>
> Except that wasn’t a novel.
Well… it’s not _billed_ as a novel. It’s highly fictionalized- Berendt inserts himself into may scenes where he never actually appeared, including the first scene. (He never even met Jim Williams until after the murder, for instance.)
However, I don’t think anybody in the book was famous other than _for_ the book (except Uga, of course).
[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Really? Who? I’ve read the book three times - it’s one of my favorite books. I never knew any of the characters in it, even the most minor ones, were real people.
[/QUOTE]
Honestly, I can’t remember at the moment, but when I was reading it the first time I remember noting “Ah, he’s real”. It was a scene where Croker goes to a fundraiser for the High Museum and somebody speaks to him, references to a couple of prominent attorneys and the like- again, none are characters so much as name dropping, just like the place names. (He also uses names from the Atlanta area for character names, though ‘Inman’ is one of the only ones I remember off hand [the patrician whose daughter was allegedly raped by the football player, is clearly taken from Inman Park).
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/19 "2012-02-06T10:19:34Z")
In the first Jack Ryan novel, Patriot Games, Tom Clancy has Ryan interact with the Queen, The Duke of Edinburgh, and the Prince of Wales.
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### Author:  [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)
#### Post date: [February 6, 2012, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-living-people-in-novels/611911/20 "2012-02-06T11:39:06Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#):
>
> Stephen King’s _The Dead Zone_ briefly features Jimmy Carter and mentions Sargent Shriver in passing, during the 1976 primaries.
King includes himself as a character in some of the Dark Tower books.
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