If you don’t recognize the name Elizabeth Gilbert, you surely know of her memoir Eat, Pray, Love. It’s the book that was on everyone’s Kindle, Nook, or library list in 2006. The one that caused at least one person in your life to quit their job to travel the world in pursuit of some sort of awakening. Yeah, that one. Eat, Pray, Love sold over 10 million copies and was adapted into a film starring Julia Roberts. Over the years, Gilbert’s published other books, nearly all of which have gone on to be bestsellers. She’s also become known for her viral speeches about creativity and productivity, and amassed a social media following in the millions. But now, Gilbert’s name is gracing the news in a decidedly less friendly way than it has on previous occasions.
On June 6, Gilbert announced via Good Morning America that her latest novel, The Snow Forest, would be coming out in February 2024. In a subsequent Twitter/Instagram announcement, she revealed that the novel was inspired by her experience living in isolation during the first year of the pandemic.
“This is a book that is going to take you into the deepest realms of the Siberian Taiga, and into the heart and mind of an extraordinary girl born into that world,” Gilbert said, in a video uploaded to both social channels. (You can watch it in full below.)
A mere week later, though, Gilbert had postponed the publication of her novel indefinitely, and was apologizing to her fans.
So what the hell happened?
Why Elizabeth Gilbert decided to cancel her new book, The Snow Forest
Shortly after Gilbert announced the upcoming publication of her novel, The Snow Forest, on June 6, Ukrainian activists began to “review bomb” her book’s GoodReads page, leaving hundreds of one-star reviews for a novel that wasn’t even available to the public yet. Users also flooded Gilbert’s Instagram and Twitter announcements with angry comments in protest of The Snow Forest.
Why?
Because the novel is set in Russia.
Even though the novel is historical fiction, and takes place a full century before Russia’s war with Ukraine, and was written by Gilbert years before the war with Ukraine began, countless users were quick to share their outrage that Gilbert would write a book that “sympathizes the people of a country that started the biggest war in last 80 years in the middle of Europe,” as one user said.
On June 12, Gilbert took to social media to announce that she was postponing publication of The Snow Forest indefinitely. Gilbert cited the “enormous outpouring…from my Ukrainian readers, expressing anger, sorrow and pain” about her decision to release “any book…that is set in Russia.”
In that announcement video, Gilbert further explained the context of her novel.
“[The Snow Forest is] set in the middle of Siberia in the middle of the last century, and told the story of a group of individuals who made a decision to remove themselves from society to resist the Soviet government and to try to defend nature against industrialization,” she said.
Why Gilbert’s decision is baffling to so many authors — and sets a dangerous precedent for the future
In recent days, authors and critics alike (not to mention countless readers) have near-unanimously decried Gilbert’s decision to pull her book for a number of reasons. Many are also pointing out the flawed regulation system on GoodReads, which is a notoriously influential platform that can play a direct role in a book’s success — or failure.
After Gilbert made that fateful first announcement confirming the release date of her soon-to-be-canceled next novel, the GoodReads page for the novel immediately received hundreds of one-star reviews — which means, essentially, that the book’s chance of performing well on the platform by the time of publication had decreased significantly.
Author Roxane Gay called out the GoodReads dilemma specifically on Twitter, writing, “Goodreads really needs a mechanism for stopping one-star attacks on writers. It undermines what little credibility they have left.” She added in a subsequent tweet, “People have reviewed books of mine that aren’t finished.”
The central issue with the drama circulating around The Snow Forest is the sheer fact that the novel isn’t in the world yet. What’s more, what we do know of the plot, from Gilbert’s descriptions, indicates that the book has absolutely nothing to do with the war on Ukraine, and in fact, depicts a community fighting the ideology of a Russian government.
Now that the book might never see the light of day, though, there’s no way to critically engage with the text from either angle, defense or criticism.
Russian journalist and novelist Keith Gessen noted this disparity in a recent exchange with The Washington Post. “If the book is good, and teaches us things about Russia and the Russian past that we didn’t know…then it’s a bad decision to pull it,” Gessen said. “But if the book is not good, and uses Russia, as some American authors have done over the years, as a kind of romantic place of History and Tragedy, then it’s an honorable decision. But without having read the book it’s impossible to know which one of these it is.”
Still, other writers have pointed out the impossible (and largely impractical) expectation that one should write — and read — novels from the kind of ethical standpoint that Gilbert’s protestors seem to have, which argues that any book set in Russia is unacceptable simply by virtue of the fact that it’s set in Russia.
Author Brandon Taylor, who has written fiction including Real Life and The Late Americans, pointed out the hypocrisy of choosing to criticize books set in Russia, but not in any other country that has perpetrated war crimes at a mass scale. “Does this mean we…shouldn’t be reading books set in Germany, let alone America????” he wrote.
Rebecca Makkai, another celebrated author known for novels like The Great Believers and I Have Some Questions For You, pointed out several flaws in the protestors’ arguments as well. “So apparently: Wherever you set your novel, you’d better hope to hell that by publication date (usually about a year after you turned it in) that place isn’t up to bad things, or you are personally complicit in them,” Makkai tweeted.
She added in a subsequent thread, “Doesn’t matter if your book is about people fighting the power; that would imply that some of the people in that country are not pure evil, which is obviously out of line.”
Per The Los Angeles Times, other authors have experienced similar pressure from Ukrainian activists after announcing the upcoming publication of books that involve Russia. One writer, Nora Krug, has a graphic memoir called Diaries of War that will be published in August and is based on a correspondence between a Ukrainian journalist and a Russian artist. Krug is now facing increased pressure to cancel her own book’s publication now that Gilbert has set that precedent.
Krug has given no indication that she plans to pull her book from publication. If you want to support her book, you can preorder it here — or at the very least, promise to reserve all judgment on the content until after you’ve read it.
