No More Writers, Please!

Perhaps they’re just trying to write what they know. I can’t think of any other reason why so many of the novels I’ve read lately feature writers as characters. And it’s led me to the conclusion that we need to pass a law requiring all aspiring novelists to get as many odd and interesting jobs as possible before they settle in to write the great American novel.

Writing about a writer creates two problems. First, if the narrator is a writer, it can lead to some tiresome meta-fictional book-within-a-book stuff. Usually this is a lot more fun for the author than the reader. Take Travel Writing by Peter Ferry. The novel features a writer and writing teacher who witnesses a car accident and becomes obsessed with a dead girl. In some ways, the novel is clever and entertaining, but Ferry spends too much time asking the reader to guess whether the central events in the novel actually happened or were invented by the narrator. The narrator’s writing career also provides an excuse for inserting sections on various trips that are never carefully linked back to the main narrative.

Kevin Casey’s newest novel, A State of Mind, features another author/narrator who keeps a journal recording the events that form the novel. This device seems unnecessary and at times confusing. It would have been far better to launch into the plot without this gimmick.

The other problem with books about writers is that writers live boring lives. Most of them spend the bulk of their time at their desks, writing or doing research. The plot of A State of Mind eventually takes off, but only when the writers in the book (there are three) leave their desks and find some trouble. The same is true for Ninni Holmqvist’s novel The Unit, in which a middle aged writer finds herself consigned to a futuristic medical unit where “dispensable” unmarried, childless middle-aged people are forced to undergo experiments and organ donations for the benefit of the more necessary members of society. Holmqvist’s protagonist lives a life so well ordered that it’s at times dull to read about. A dramatic plot twist midway saves the plot and keeps the reader turning pages, but the development has nothing to do with the narrator’s writing career.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is the exception that proves the rule. Stockett creates a rich novel that just happens to feature an unusual writing project that puts the participants’ lives at risk. Watching as those writers set up clandestine meetings and race against a tight deadline to record the story of their lives is a delight. So, perhaps it is possible to write about a writer, but it’s the rare author who pulls it off.