About the Author

About the Author by John Colapinto

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


After reading his recent tour de force-- “Undone”-- about the awful and deliberate destruction of the life of a famous self-help writer--I sought out an earlier work of John Colapinto’s, which is how I came to read “About the Author” from 2001.

“About the Author” is not as harsh as “Undone”, but it is no less full of the wrongness that made his later work so enjoyable to the depraved person in me (or maybe the depraved person who also lives in you!). ATA is about an unlovable cad named Cal Cunningham, whose ambition is to be a famous author…only he seems to lack the talent. But for whatever he lacks as a writer, Cal is a cunning Lothario who regales his roommate, Stewart Church, with tales of his sexual conquests, after which Stewart goes to his bedroom in his tiny New York City apartment to do God knows what…

And then later, much to his shock, Cal discovers that Church has been transcribing these adventures and fictionalizing it in his OWN literary work, which he calls “Almost Like Suicide.” Cal is hurt, angry, but most of all utterly convinced of his own writerly ineptitude. Church has taken his life and turned it into brilliant literature. Cal cannot get over it. Upon his discovery of the manuscript, he awaits his roommate to return so he can confront him. But Stewart never returns, having been killed in a bicycle accident on the street. And Cal is confronted with the possibility that he could just steal Stewart's’ story and pass it off as his own…because after all it IS his story, isn’t it...?

And it goes from there: “Cal’s” novel is a smash hit, Cal gets a big deal to write another book. He even meets a woman and gets married (an entanglement that begins with Stewart and continues with a lie) but the past catches up with him when one of his conquests comes back to blackmail him with some incriminating evidence: the laptop that Stewart Church used to write the book that Cal has taken credit for…

254 pages, pushes the envelope only a little less than "Undone," but still, the foundation for "Undone" is there. I liked all the twists it took, and for the most part, it held my interest throughout. Colapinto’s plots are engaging, fun and the way the story turns into itself somewhat (since it is written in 1st person perspective) is very clever. It seems that there is a theme of amoral characters co-existing with the innocents around them in the two books I have read so far. I like it.

On board for the next one, whenever it is.




View all my reviews