Book Report: About the Author

By John Colapinto

'About the Author'

From Publisher's Weekly:
'Cal Cunningham, the engaging, "panther-thin" protagonist of Colapinto's intrepid first foray into fiction (after his nonfictional debut As Nature Made Him) is an author with writer's block, struggling to acquire the "monastic absorption" needed to pen his autobiography and be freed from a meager existence as a bookstore stock boy. His dreams of success are further dashed when reclusive law student-roommate Stewart presents a brilliant short story he's written, and after some digging on the sly, Cal discovers a scandalous, novel-length manuscript recounting the sordid details of his own womanizing life. When Stewart is killed in a biking accident, a resentful, envious Cal adopts the manuscript, Almost Like Suicide, as his own and courts Stewart's old girlfriend Janet, too. Aided by flawlessly rendered literary agent Blackie Yeager, who sells the novel for millions, Cal lands a monetary and media windfall. Eventually moving to New Halcyon, Vt., to marry Janet, his perfect if duplicitous life is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger claiming to have Stewart's laptop computer containing the original manuscript; Cal's messy, disastrous comeuppance, involving blackmail and murder, takes over the second half of the novel.'


First sentence:
"For reasons that will become obvious, I find it difficult to write about Stewart. Well, I find it difficult to write about anything, God knows. But Stewart presents special problems."

For some unknown reason, I misled myself into believing that this book would be like 'Secret Window', so for the first one third of the story, I believed that temporary antagonist 'Stewart' was only Cal's imaginary friend. But as the story spiraled deeper and deeper into Cal's guilt and good fortune, I re-read the blurbs on the back and realized there were no mind-games. This story is a straight and colorful adventure including drunken binges, lesbian foreplay, blackmail and murderous intentions. In the course of over a year, Cal goes from being a poor, lowly want-to-be writer to owning a house in the country, with millions in the bank and movie deals pending. It's all come to him because he stole his dead roommate's unpublished novel--but he rationalizes the plagiarism by telling himself that the story is ultimately his; events that happened to him, merely transcribed by Stewart. And because no one knew Stewart had even written it, the script was free for the taking.

Except one person did know--the morning he died, Stewart mailed a copy of the book to his old girlfriend, asking her to critique it. In a panic, Cal races to Vermont and easily--TOO easily--lifts the package before Janet even knows she had it. High on his successful criminal-ism, Cal now sees no hurry to rush back to his cramped apartment. He asks out the lovely Janet, to which she agrees, and soon they fall in love and marry.

Just when everything seems picture-perfect, Les shows up--a one night stand from months ago who has in her possession the laptop she stole from Stewart before vanishing into thin air. And what should be saved on said laptop, but a copy of 'Almost Like Suicide', written by Stewart. Cal, desperate to save his reputation, marriage, and humility, caves to Les and gives her the money she demands, riding on very thin hope that they can live as parasite and host for the rest of their lives, peacefully.

But as Les demands more and Cal becomes more and more desperate, things fall apart. Unfortunate for Cal, but great reading for the audience!

I liked this book. Cal has a sense of humor, though not overly so. He is a worrier but cunning, always trying to stay one step ahead. For everything that happens to him, he calculates a way out. Most of all, I loved how he justified every single unjust thing he did. Nothing was his fault, he did nothing wrong, he could and would live happily ever after. These were thin delusions of course, but exactly what guilty parties cling to so they can sleep at night.

This was written in first person and at about the three-forths mark, things become present-tense as everything beforehand has been written by Cal as a memoir. It takes on more of a diary-type tone, hurried and insecure as the pressure becomes tight. After the climax, the pace slows again and we learn that the entire book, 'About the Author' was written as-is by the protag as a memoir.

And there are movie deals pending.

Colapinto did an outstanding job creating a smooth story out of what could have easily been disjointed and confusing. I even noticed that as the story progressed, 'Cal's' writing improved--conveying ever-so-subtlety that if he'd only sat down and wrote, instead of scheming up ways to not write, all his troubles could have been avoided. Very good lesson.

The only problem I had was that I felt that at any point, I could have set this down and forgotten about it. I'm not sure why I felt that way. The events were tense and logical, always escalating. The characters (well, Cal, anyway) was interesting and honest. The writing style, while starting off bland, developed and became quite good. The imagery was clear. The dialogue real. This was just a long story, perhaps too long for my tiny attention span to grasp. But that is no fault of the author's.

Three and a half stars out of five for plotting and accurately portraying the insane, eff*ed up psychology of a writer.