John Colapinto: About The Author

[novella]

I was just remembering this book, which had one of the best plot set-ups I've ever read. Unfortunately, as usual, the end fell apart into violent implausibility.

But . . . the set-up was genius.

Two roommates, one social, gregarious and funny, the other quiet and nerdy. Social guy comes home every night and tells anecdotes about his sexual and social adventures to Nerdy guy. Nerdy says nothing.

Nerdy guy gets killed in an accident. Social guy finds a manuscript written by Nerdy guy, which is basically a book of all the stories Social guy has told him while they were living together--the story of Social guy's life, in novel form. Social guy decides to publish the book under his own name. After all it's his life. But he's stealing the work, right?

I won't say more, but isn't that such a great plot?

 

[sanyuja]

Yeah, it does sound interesting. I will give this book a try.
Just curious: how does the book proceed from then on? Does it talk about the tussle between the good social guy (who feels guilty about stealing nerdy's work) and the bad social guy?

 

[mehastings]

Yeah, it does sound interesting. I will give this book a try.
Just curious: how does the book proceed from then on?

Yea, is there some kind of catch? Or does the dude get away with stealing the book? I don't care who I was writing the book about, stealing my writing would be cause for a good haunting.

 

[novella]

I won't spoil it for you. But doesn't that plot pique your interest? I wish I'd thought of it myself!

 

[sanyuja]

But doesn't that plot pique your interest?

It certainly does

 

[Wabbit]

It actually doesn't call to me. I personally wouldn't be interested but each to their own

 

[Shade]

I read a similar book a few years ago, Kill Your Darlings by Terence Blacker. The narrator was a creative-writing teacher who had frustrated ambitions of his own as a novelist. One of his pupils was extremely talented and left his manuscript with him to read ... then got killed. Teacher can't resist passing it off as his own and getting it published... Sound familiar, novella?!

 

[clueless]

I have seen two films with that plot, although they were very different.

DOA, where a college professor steals a student's unpublished book. In the other film a writer commits suicide and his illiterate girlfriend passes it as her own

 

[Shade]

Oh yes, that last one you mention is Morvern Callar (which was a novel by Alan Warner before it was a film). Ironic if any of these writers were stealing the idea of the stolen-manuscript plot from one another...

 

[novella]

The twist that I thought worked particularlyl well in Colapinto's book is that the written stories are tales that the MS thief told his roommate every night, which the roommate who had no life would go write down as his own, verbatim. Did you ever think, when telling a story, that it could turn up somewhere under someone else's name?

Funny enough, I'm now reading Blue Angel, about a professor jealous of his student's writing, but the plot is pretty pedestrian.

 

[clueless]

Did you ever think, when telling a story, that it could turn up somewhere under someone else's name?

No, but it depends on the circumstances. I would not mind if it happened as in the book – people writing down an anecdote I told them-; it would be completely different if it was a plot that I intended to use.
I did some ghost writing year ago and I did not mind while it was a question of a few articles but I put my foot down when the person was offered a series of lectures and asked to write a book.