Boy-girl break-ups are traumatic enough, as we of the everyday well know. But when the guy lowers the boom at the rehearsal dinner and announces he’s fallen for his fiancée’s close friend, the result trips something magical, and not necessarily in a good way. Crestfallen jiltee Kate is about to discover as much as she trumpets the news to the world over the social media she devours – with little warning, her real life starts to mirror whatever she writes in her Facebook status. Her newfound strange tool bids her back in time, and she’s bent on rewriting her history with philanderer Max. The book is called “The Status of All Things,” and in real life, it amounts to another coup for authors and former Vistans Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke, who will visit Warwick’s Books at 7:30 p.m. Monday, June 8 to talk about their newest work and discuss magical realism, their genre’s unofficial handle. They’re veterans at these get-togethers already, having visited the venue last year for a talk about “Your Perfect Life” and its body-swap plot – in each case, Fenton says, the central figure’s better angels prevail. “Does Kate want to look perfect, or does she want to be happy?” San Diego resident Fenton asks of Kate. “The two things are really different things, and I think that’s what’s at the heart of the book. Everyone wants to have their online persona. Lisa and I do it too with Facebook and (the photo-driven) Instagram. Everyone wants to frame their online lives. But the point is that that’s not their real life. We thought it would be good to pursue that in a fun way.” Lately, that’s sometimes difficult to reconcile. Online-generated crime (most notably the horrific 2014 stabbing of a Wisconsin girl by her friends, the latter attempting to appease a vengeful electronic character called Slenderman) is a reality, and to that extent, the real has merged with the ideal. “There’s a part of the book,” Chicagoan Steinke says, “where, to her, her real life and her online life are the same. But without giving too much away, she learns to separate the two as the book goes on.” “But the Internet has changed our world,” Fenton adds. “It’s changed our world in so many ways. We know people who hate other people or get jealous with other people because of what’s on Facebook. Bur our thing is, and we tell them, ‘Y’gotta be in on the game.’ You can’t take it seriously, but people really do.” Book publishing is a game too, in the most literal sense of the word, and Fenton and Steinke are in on that one as well. “Your Perfect Life,” their debut from 2014, was published by Simon & Schuster sub-imprint Washington Square Press nearly off the bat – no small feat in an industry wherein three of every 1,000 first-timers see the light of day. Washington Square is publishing “Status” as well; release is set for Tuesday, June 2. Maybe the attraction’s in the genre itself. The magical realism handle reflects a very powerful pull in poop culture (television’s counterparts might include the vampire-driven “The Originals” or the fairytale-fueled “Grimm”), and Fenton says there are a few books that fall into that category. Meanwhile, Fenton says anticlimactically, “You just have to keep writing. You have to keep at that novel that captures the attention of who you’re sending it to,” especially the one that exploits a life-altering cultural phenomenon. The girls have been writing partners for eight years and talk a lot about having turned 40 (Fenton is 41, Steinke 42). But understand: That information was extracted over the phone, a central precursor to Facebook – so who knows the extent of the truth behind it. Guess we have to trust that it’s accurate, lest today’s electronic lessons fail us. That’s what Kate did, and it sounds as if she’s the better for it. Warwick’s is located at 7812 Girard Ave. The event is free.
