"You know what? The bastard blows me out of the water. This guy writes Maine like Ardai writes New York. If you're not reading him, you don't know what you're missing." --Chris F. Holm, author of "The Collector" series, The Killing Kind, and Red Right Hand.

"A refreshingly new voice in noir." --Ed Kurtz, author of Nothing You Can Do and The Rib From Which I Remake the World.

"A glorious boilermaker of noir and East Coast gothic. The action is taut as a sprung snare and Bagley tightens the screws with every page." -- Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase and Blood Standard.




Monday, June 1, 2009

Maybe It's Just Me, But...

Most books in which the protagonist is a novelist, poet or reporter bore me to death. There are a few exceptions, like Tony Black's Gus Dury, Quoyle from The Shipping News or Laura Lippman's Tess Monahan.* After writing fiction most of the day, I don't usually want to read fiction about writers.





*Yes, I realize that Dury and Monahan are ex-journalists.

5 comments:

Chris said...

Ha! I both agree, and am guilty of doing this. The protagonist of THE ANGELS' SHARE is a reporter, albeit for a small-town weekly rag that mostly writes about touristy stuff like the best place in town to get a lobster roll. I could make excuses about why mine is an exception, but I'm not going to bother, 'cause that's not for me to say.

What I will say is that I think the writers-writing-writers trend is an unintended consequence of the (horrid, in my opinion) advice, "Write what you know." Instead, I think authors should endeavor to know what they write. We'd end up with far fewer writer-protags that way.

David Cranmer said...

Writers as protagonists don't bother me. I could add King's MISERY and Hemingway's "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" to your list. If it's as well written as those I don't mind.

Patrick Shawn Bagley said...

Like I said, there are exceptions (and I'm sure Chris' novel will prove to be one), but as a rule I don't care for writer-protags. And, of course, the whole problem could just be me.

pattinase (abbott) said...

Try Starvation Lake by Bryan Grueley or Paperboy by Pete Dexter.

carl brookins said...

Take a look at Julie Kramer's "Stalking Susan," a really good TV reporter's quest to find a killer. One of the strengths of the novel is Kramer's judicious insertion of behind the scenes action of the tv station personnel in a way than not only explains but moves the action ahead. Far more useful and interesting than just periodic infodumps.