There is a statement at the beginning of Anon Pls. that deserves to be reproduced in full:
“Guys, just a heads-up . . . While this book definitely draws inspo from events in my actual life, this story is obvi a work of fiction. Any mention of real people (celebs or normies), events, or establishments are intended only to give the book a sense of authenticity—and FUN. Everything else—characters, dialogue, incidents—I totally made up.”
This is the story of Deuxmoi, the Instagram account that has become a must-follow in recent years for anybody wanting to know the latest celebrity gossip. The concept behind the account is simple: people message in anonymous tips about celebrities, anything from their go-to orders at restaurants to career-ending allegations, and the account reposts them with the infamous disclaimer that “some statements made on this account have not been independently confirmed. This account does not claim information published is based in fact.”
The influence of the Deuxmoi account on post-pandemic celebrity and internet culture cannot be denied. I personally have no idea what I would do without the account’s weekly Sunday Spotted feature, where it posts all its anonymous tips for the week in a gargantuan-length Instagram story. The account has had a huge impact too on the restaurants that are frequently mentioned in its tips, with establishments such as Carbone, Lucien and Via Carota in New York and Chiltern Firehouse in London being booked out for months in advance by fans hoping to do some of their own celebrity snooping.
But the essence of Deuxmoi is that it is mindless fun. It is nothing to be taken wholly seriously or given any thought the second after you tap off the account. This seems to be news to the anonymous duo behind the account (whose identities were revealed earlier this year), who have, for some reason, written a novel about its foundation. Yes, we have reached the point in literature where there is a novel about someone starting an Instagram account. James Joyce, bby, I’m so sorry.
In the world of the novel, the founder of Deuxmoi is a woman called Cricket Lopez, a fashion assistant who lives in New York. Through her boss, a nightmare of a stylist named Sasha Sherman, Cricket has insider access to the world of celebrity. When she notices that one of Sasha’s clients, the TikTok star Madison Lee, has been reselling the clothes sent to her for free on a consignment site, she decides to post this bit of gossip onto an old Instagram that her and her friend used to run together called Deuxmoi. Obviously, everything spirals from there.
Suddenly, the DeuxMoi account is being flooded with fragments of celeb gossip, which Cricket screenshots and reposts, and the account we know and love is born. I’ve often had a sleepless night over the mystery of the creation of the DeuxMoi account. I’ve stared sorrowfully out weather-beaten windows wondering what the moniker “Deuxmoi” means. (Spoiler: it has “no real meaning, just a silly bit of French nothingness that sounded fake-fancy in my head.”)
Despite my issues with this book, it is hard to fault it on technical grounds. In fact, I was genuinely quite surprised by how competent Anon Pls. is. Most of this, I am presuming, is down to Jessica Goodman, the YA author who is credited as the book’s co-writer, and someone who I am begging to send me a signal from whatever basement HarperCollins have her locked in. No, the fault of Anon Pls. is down to its audience, which seems to be exactly one person (okay, two) — Deux themselves.
If you had no idea what Deuxmoi is and, for some reason, you decided to read Anon Pls., you couldn’t be faulted for believing that the creation of the Instagram account was a great deal more major than it actually was. To an outsider, with only this novel to go off, you’d believe that Deuxmoi is up there with the Panama Papers. The novel treats the Instagram account with such gravity and reverence that it often descends into pure megalomania. I’m slightly worried about Deux after reading this novel. The way they exalt the account, the way they treat it like it is the most important thing in the world, the fact they have written an entire novel about this damn Instagram account… It’s giving delusion. It’s giving I think we can all sing. It’s giving Harry Styles’ IMDb page.
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Whilst I’m sure some people could be entertained by Anon Pls. — the chapter in which Cricket stakes out a vegan artisan bakery because she receives an anonymous tip about them using Betty Crocker mixes and dairy butter is truly unmissable literature — I cannot help but wonder whether someone could better spend their time reading anything else. Apropos of nothing, here are some novels that are shorter than Anon Pls.: The Bell Jar, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Pale Fire, We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Carrie, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.
If your interest is piqued and you do decide to pick up the novel after reading this, I have only one question: I’m being paid to read this book, what’s your excuse?