no better than ok; unappealing characters

books:


	• Death of a Writer: A Novel Michael Collins Bloomsbury USA, 2007 - 320 pages average customer review:based on 22 reviews view larger image
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no better than ok; unappealing characters

Ron Charles' review in the Post was enough to have me try "Death of a Writer". Unfortunately, I did not come to the same conclusion as Mr. Charles, as this was easily one of the weaker books I have read in the past year, with spots of excellent writing and commentary mixed in with a story lacking in drive, and populated by relatively uninteresting and unappealing characters with little redeeming value.

I will give Mr. Collins credit for beating up on academia, the hype machine for books, and the banality of normal existence. Who can argue when he implies that people say about books what other people have told them to think about books?

Regarding the murder mystery that connected with "Scream", I didn't really care about the true culprit or the low-life victim, and had guessed the perp well before the end anyway. Mr. Collins went overboard on Detective Ryder's character. Did he really need to have so many problems of his own? And what was with the ape and various other incidental detours? I suppose they justify some colorful English riffs, and the author can spin a paragraph, indeed. I prefer a little tighter story.

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Ambitious, lyrical, dark and dangerous

This latest book from the Booker Prize nominated Irish author Michael Collins is much more than a classical murder mystery that some readers have labeled it. Collins' writing in fact is fierce, lyrical and true.

The complex interactions of the characters and situations - the famous writer, the struggling writer, academia versus commercial publishing, the adjunct teacher/PhD career track trap, the political infighting within academic departments, the love interactions, the brutal murder of a young girl, the discovered manuscript, the conflict of dates and the investigative process all mesh together under Collins' complex direction to produce a fierce, lyrical story and narrative which makes one want to read the book again as soon as you are finished. A great book. His best.

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Quite funny and biting

It's apparent, now, that Michael Collins doesn't like American academia. In the previous book of his I read, the Resurrectionists, he had a petty thief redeem himself at a college in the upper Midwest because the denizens of this institution didn't recognize him for what he was. The current book is a more acerbic skewering of the institution: E. Robert Pendleton, a flash-in-the-pan novelist who's retreated into the refuge of a college in Indiana where he teaches meaningless writing courses to disinterested students while self-publishing "experimental" works no one reads. His rival from his college days, a successful novelist who has morphed himself into a writer of "coffee table books" who takes the safe, easy, commercial path in writing, which of course Pendleton hates and at the same time envies. As a result of this guy coming to give a lecture at the college, Pendleton tries to kill himself, and this sets in motion a series of other events that have all sorts of repercussions.

In the basement of his house, one of Pendleton's students, now taking charge of his affairs because he's only semi-functional, discovers a book he self-published some years before. The book recounts the murder of a small girl by a character not too different from Pendleton himself. The student decides that the book is worth another look from real, professional publishers, and enlists the help of the successful rival. The rival's feeling guilty about Pendleton's suicide attempt, so he makes his pitch to the publisher, and the book takes off. When it does, the police receive, anonymously, a package of clippings that make it clear that the writer of the book might have actually killed a girl in the fashion described in the book. Enter a detective, one with a great deal of baggage of his own, and the fun begins.

This is one of the strangest books I've read in recent years. The author has a real thing for the American liberal arts education system, which he clearly despises. He makes everyone involved in it in the book a villain or despicable at some level. I didn't really think the book actually had a protagonist, and as much as it does, he's flawed enough that at times you wonder if he's the killer, instead. The author doesn't spare any of the characters, and the ending of the book is frankly merciless. Even so, the book is worthwhile for its skewering of pretentious writing, and the academic system in America.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

From Booker Prize nominee Michael Collins comes ?a wonderfully creepy murder mystery? (People), about a novelist whose last hope for fame may be the deepest secret in his past.

For E. Robert Pendleton, a professor clinging to tenure and living in the shambles of his once-bright literary career, death seems to be the only remaining option. But his suicide attempt fails, and during his long convalescence, a novel is discovered hidden in his basement: a brilliant, semi-autobiographical story with a gruesome child murder at its core.

The publication of Scream causes a storm of publicity and raises questions about its content?in particular, about the uncanny resemblance between Pendleton?s fictional crime and a real-life, unresolved local murder. How did Pendleton know the case so well? And why did he bury Scream in his basement? A rare blend of suspense, humor and insight, Death of a Writer is ?dark, disturbing and damnably good.? (Baltimore Sun).

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