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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Colapinto

Fourth Estate, £6.99pbk


Reviewed by Donna Moore




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This novel is literary fiction about literary fiction. Cal Cunningham dreams of being a best-selling author; although he never actually does any writing. He spends his days as a bookstore clerk and his evenings picking up women. These conquests are part of the material for his autobiographical novel, and he regularly regales his roommate Stewart with the details, as if rehearsing how they will sound on the page. Cal sees Stewart as a dull, reclusive law student with no artistic soul. You can imagine his surprise, then, when he discovers that Stewart has written the novel Cal has been dreaming about writing all these years - partly because it is beautifully written, told with passion, and full of life, but also because the life it's full of is Cal's own. Still reeling from the shock, Cal then learns of his roommate's death in a cycling accident.

This book is about Cal's life; the choices he makes and how he rationalizes those options. Cal is self-centred, weak, and immoral, yet he justifies his actions in a believable way. I couldn't like him, but at times I almost sympathized as he lives through the Hitchcockian nightmare that develops. I didn't warm to any of the characters but I was fascinated by their lives, and how the story would play out. I was glad when I left them on the last page. About The Author is a very stylish, well-written book. The narrative flows beautifully and there are touches of satirical, dark humour. At times, the style seems almost too self-conscious but it's the self-consciousness of the rather pretentious Cal Cunningham, whose every word seems to be uttered with a view as to how it will look in the pages of a novel.