0
0
Sometimes it’s
hard to be a writer. All that pressure to create something magnificent, something
engaging, something amusing, something touching, something entertaining, something (most
importantly) highly profitable. Cal Cunningham knows the pressures all too well. After
college, he moved to New York to become a famous writer. Instead, he spends three years
working as a bookstore stock boy by day and cruising the bars for chicks by night, and
the pages of paper that were meant to contain his best-selling novel remain blank.
One night, Cal’s reclusive law-student roommate, Stewart, shows him a
short story that Stewart has written—and Cal is shocked (and appalled) to discover that
his strange, anti-social roommate is a talented writer. He’s even more shocked when
Stewart announces that he’s also written a novel. The next day, Cal snoops through
Stewart’s room, finds the novel, and discovers that it’s his own life story. All the
stories he told Stewart—stories about his childhood, his life, and his, um, numerous
conquests (the exact material that Cal was planning to turn into a novel of his own)—had
been turned into a brilliant manuscript called Almost Like
Suicide.
When Stewart is killed in a bicycle accident, Cal decides
that Suicide is, technically, his story anyway, so he changes the author’s name on
the manuscript and ships it off to a big-time New York agent, who turns around and gets
Cal a book deal for almost a million dollars (and that’s not even talking about film
rights…).
Life is perfect for Cal—he’s rich, he’s famous, and he’s even
found himself a beautiful wife (who happens to be Stewart’s ex-girlfriend) and a quiet
home in Vermont. But then Lesley shows up—one of Cal’s New York flings, who had run off
with Stewart’s laptop and who now owns the original copy of Almost Like Suicide by
Stewart Church. Suddenly, Cal finds himself scrambling to hold on to the perfect life
he’s built—and keep Les from tearing it all back down.
Part diary, part
confession, About the Author is a masterpiece of suspense. Colapinto weaves Cal’s
story into a novel that you won’t be able to put down—no matter how hard you try (or how
long ago you should have turned off the lights and gone to bed). And while you’ll really
want to be able to point your finger at Cal and say, “See? That’s what you get for
lying,” you’ll find yourself cheering him on anyway and hoping that he’ll come out on
top.
