Lottie Moggach turns Facebook addiction into debut novel ‘Kiss Me First’

TORONTO – Lottie Moggach says the idea for her chilling Internet identity theft novel “Kiss Me First” was born from an activity she ultimately decided was a massive time suck: Facebook.

Her reliance on the social networking service, she said, came in “2007-ish” when the freelance journalist was “underemployed.”

“I found myself spending a huge amount of the day on Facebook in a really properly addicted way. Not just checking in, you know, in the morning and the afternoon but looking every five minutes or so,” Moggach recalled recently during an interview from her London home.

“It was after a few months of this very heavy duty relationship (that) I started thinking about how my relationship with people I was kind of leering over on Facebook was changing, and how actually I didn’t feel the need to see them in the flesh so much because I knew all I needed to know.

She added: “It just struck me that rather than enhancing real-life relationships that this social network could actually replace them.”

That thought provided the kernel for “Kiss Me First” (Doubleday), told in the first-person voice of Leila, a loner who is drawn to an online philosophy forum called “Red Pill” and becomes convinced by the site’s enigmatic founder Adrian to take over the online identity of a troubled young woman named Tess.

Moggach, 36, says the storyline came together naturally after the initial spark.

“When I had the idea that perhaps one of these lives I was looking at online could not exist … just from that, the plot came extremely quickly and the characters came really quickly,” she said.

“That was painless, really, the actual idea. The execution of it was what really took the time.”

Using her background in journalism, Moggach says she did “lots and lots” of research, scouring philosophy sites similar to the Red Pill.

She also consulted her mother, Deborah Moggach, the English writer whose novels include “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”

“She was extremely helpful because she’s taught creative writing so she’s very good at talking about writing,” said Moggach.

The motherly advice evidently helped. “Kiss Me First” is receiving positive reviews and Moggach says she already has an idea for her next novel.

And, she sees the irony in creating something productive from an activity she thought was a time waster.

“That’s the wonderful thing about writing is you can turn negative experiences into (good things),” she said. “When something terrible happens, part of me is thinking ‘I can use this, something good and worthwhile can come out of this.'”

And has she resumed her love affair with Facebook?

“I have no desire to get back into Facebook,” Moggach said firmly. “None whatseover. And even when I catch an accidental glimpse of it I slightly shudder.”