In Don’t I Know You?, writer Marni Jackson presents a collection of linked stories detailing the exploits of fictional writer Rose McEwan, with an author’s note explaining the fine line between fiction and reality:  “These stories are works of fiction” infused with “autobiographical elements”? But hasn’t it always been so?

As reviewer Philip Marchand notes, “The stories are of two kinds: the first, the predominant strain, are plausible narratives in which one can easily imagine the celebrity in question. ‘Doon,’ which launches the collection, introduces Rose as an adolescent writer taking a creative writing course taught by a scarcely older young man, one John Updike. Here is the first challenge faced by Jackson: how to create a character convincing in its outlines, compared to the ‘real’ person bearing that name.

“It can be delicate. In the story featuring Bob Dylan, the author must ponder mundane details and make them convincing. For example, how does the great Bob Dylan brush his teeth? Jackson must decide. ‘For several minutes he scoured his teeth over the kitchen sink, brushing and spitting methodically,’ she writes. Does he floss? Yes, asserts Jackson. ‘Then he flossed, making the thread pock rhythmically.’

“Updike reveals himself in a different way. Watching Rose sew, his curiosity is aroused by the white trim along the bottom of her sleeveless top. ‘I like that,’ he says. But he is a writer: it is not enough for something to catch his fancy—it must have a name. And what does this object call itself? ‘Rickrack,’ she tells Updike.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if Jackson did lift ‘rickrack’ from the great mass of Updike prose. . . .

“In ‘Doon’ and ‘Free Love’ the celebrities are more witnesses than participants, although Updike does play a significant part in Rose’s growth and development. (‘I didn’t think playfulness and humor were allowed,’ she states at one point, and it is not hard to see the hand of Updike in this revelation.) . . . .”

Here’s the full review:  “Meet Leonard Cohen the ice cream vendor and Keith Richards the surgeon in Marni Jackson’s Don’t I Know You?”