5/17/07

Ghostwriting the Whip

I’ve known about it for a while, so I dunno why I’ve never bothered to tell anybody about this book.
cover

Now, I haven't read it, so this isn't one of those "I just read this amazing book and I had to give my 2 pence!" situations. Don't get me wrong, I always meant to read it before I blabbed about it, but I just haven’t got around to it. I only mention the thing, this markable work of belles lettres, because its protagonist is named for my pops. We're not talking, like, "this book's hero and my father happen to share a name," like if you coincidentally had a dad named Sherlock Holmes or Philip Marlowe.

back
(I like the way the syntax could be taken to imply that their son is an overly-amorous 16 year-old beauty. And seriously, does this sound like a great book or what?!)

In 1994, my dad, feeling sure that he could never pen a book himself, went to Britain and met with this ghostwriter fellow, A.C., about a potential project of some kind or another that never came to fruition. He visited A.C.'s 16th palatial estate, gardens maintained by A.C.'s father, an English gardener. How wonderfully British! Seven, eight years later, out pops this little gem from A.C.'s literary uterus, into the literary community. My dad only found out about it - by "it," I mean being the namesake of a Brit literary detective - because he googled himself. No joke. That's why I'm calling him A.C. Because I don't want A.C. to google himself and find out that the son of his protagonist has an eye on him. And by him, I mean this guy.

WNCover
I think he was in The Who. No no no, I think he played Doctor Who.

It seems this A.C. fellow liked my dad's name so much that he just slapped it onto his alter-ego, a "ghostwriter extraordinaire"-cum-comedically noncompliant private detective, who, I gather, has to find stolen breast implants or some such, so he can write a book about it, because he needs money. There are also mobsters and things, which are probably meant to heighten the drama. It's like an Elmore Leonard novel written by Franklin W. Dixon, with an attempted dash - call it a soupcon - of Raymond Chandler in the soup pan. Except everybody is very effete and smarmy, and probably very pale and thin (because they're British). I'm rendering this judgment from the 9 pages of the book I have, thus far, mowed through. Here's Mr. C's credentials, from the splash page of his book. I like to read this over and over.

about

In a BBC article on ghostwriters, A.C."denies suggestions that ghost writers are simply frustrated novelists. For one thing, he has already published a novel, MAMaids." So a book about my dad (in a manner of speaking) is all over the BBC. Yeah, boyee. Which is why I think everybody should buy this book, because nobody reviewed it - even on Amazon - and it would make a wonderful comeback success story. Plus, a guy named after my father would become a cultural icon, and possibly have a big-budget movie made about him. He could be played by Daniel Radcliffe or somink! (That's how Brits say "something"!)

Daniel-Radcliffe is JOE

Here’s a page, chosen at random, in which Joe-nee-Andy is attempting to find his errant son Hugo - whose name is so close to an anagram of mine I’m tempted to take credit as the inspiration - and then receives a phone call on his "mobile," because this book is very, very British. The prose is almost operates on the plane of comedy. It's obviously very flip, but also pretty serious. Which kind makes it pretty awesome. Right? Tough call.

252

Just imagine Harry Potter getting toast forced into him, and "fighting back the fears that were rising inside him, making him want to scream," thereby immortalizing my father and, by extention, me. This movie's going to need a ton of voice-over narration.

You know, I'm actually going to read the book now.

1 comment:

SenorStephenUrkelDaedalus said...

Your dad is incredible. Perhaps not in a way a person would desire to be incredible, but incredible, nontheless.