It's only a model.

I suspected this might happen. In fact, I worried quite a bit that it would. And now it has, so I will jump right out in front of it. Yesterday evening, at a friendly gathering of soccer players and parents (that means it wasn't a game, but simply a pre-season party), someone indicated that she thought What Happened on Smith Street was nonfiction. Perhaps even a memoir.

This is completely understandable and even fair. Enron was located on Smith Street, after all, and I did work there.

However.

What Happened on Smith Street is a novel. It's fiction. It is a made-up story. In the immortal words of Patsy, the coconut-banging vassal from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "It's only a model."

From my Q&A, on this very site:

Q. So, is this a book about Enron, as the title suggests?

A. No. The title is ironic. For seven years, we thought the problem was all about Enron, but it really wasn't. People familiar with Enron and Dynegy will recognize some very specific elements (the lay-off scenes, the embezzlement angle), and that was intentional, but only to illustrate that this sort of thing can happen anywhere. I think the tendency--or perhaps the need--is to believe that "what happened on Smith Street" was somehow unique, when in fact it wasn't. It could all happen again, and has happened again, with a different set of characters. As the book description reads, these situations go beyond a company's walls; they are about the market, unreasonable expectations, failure to heed warning signs. We are a nation of insatiable consumers. Even today, in the aftermath of what has happened. We say we have changed, but I'm not so sure. I still like stuff; I still want things.

Enron is merely prologue, and my novel is merely a story. It's dicey, I know. Some of the pieces are based on actual happenings, but they are not personal accounts of these happenings.

I suppose tongues may wag. But I think that means I've told a convincing tale.

And that's proof of yet a third kind. Isn't it?