About the Author

's Cal Cunningham calls himself a writer, but he's too busy--or too scared--to sit down and actually write anything. He spends his days working as a bookstore stock boy and his nights chasing tail in the bars of Manhattan. Sunday mornings, he spins tales about his conquests to his roommate, a reclusive, hard-working law student named Stewart Church. When Stewart is killed in auto accident, Cal finds in Stewart's desk a novel--a brilliant novel--based on Cal's own exploits. Cal is appalled, and then inspired. He sends the novel off to New York's leading literary agent, claiming it as his own. The book is a smash hit, and as he claims the rewards of literary lionization, Cal convinces himself that he is, really, at bottom, responsible for the writing of the book, if not exactly its author. Things get a bit more complicated when he hooks up with Stewart's ex-girlfriend Janet, eventually marrying her. The novel convincingly portrays Cal's determined delusion that everything has worked out just as it was meant to be. As he kisses Janet, he thinks how "Stewart's ghost had turned out to be a benevolent specter after all, his spirit helping to shape my destiny, to guide both Janet and me to this moment." Which is all well and good, till Cal discovers that someone else is in possession of a copy of the original manuscript. Author John Colapinto weaves together a farcical tale of literary ambition and a cat-and-mouse thriller as Cal and his blackmailer pursue each other to the very death. --Claire Dederer From Publishers Weekly Cal Cunningham, the engaging, "panther-thin" protagonist of Colapinto's intrepid first foray into fiction (after his nonfictional debut As Nature Made Him) is an author with writer's block, struggling to acquire the "monastic absorption" needed to pen his autobiography and be freed from a meager existence as a bookstore stock boy. His dreams of success are further dashed when reclusive law student-roommate Stewart presents a brilliant short story he's written, and after some digging on the sly, Cal discovers a scandalous, novel-length manuscript recounting the sordid details of his own womanizing life. When Stewart is killed in a biking accident, a resentful, envious Cal adopts the manuscript, Almost Like Suicide, as his own and courts Stewart's old girlfriend Janet, too. Aided by flawlessly rendered literary agent Blackie Yeager, who sells the novel for millions, Cal lands a monetary and media windfall. Eventually moving to New Halcyon, Vt., to marry Janet, his perfect if duplicitous life is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger claiming to have Stewart's laptop computer containing the original manuscript; Cal's messy, disastrous comeuppance, involving blackmail and murder, takes over the second half of the novel. Publishing-savvy readers (and those who enjoyed Donald Westlake's The Hook) will find Colapinto's depiction of Cal's book tour and the many "particularly excruciating" television interviews he must undergo hilariously apropos. Cal's surplus of manic rationalizations overwhelm some taut, well-realized suspenseful moments, and Colapinto's feel-good though immensely implausible ending will sweetly satisfy, but not without leaving a bitter aftertaste of injustice. Still, this is a fine first effort from an emerging voice in fiction. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Cal Cunningham gets his literary start in an apparently easy way when he steals his dead roommate Stewart's manuscript and has it published as his own. Before Stewart met his untimely end in a bicycle accident, Cal regarded him only as a boring, unimaginative law student who got his kicks from asking Cal about his nightly sex-in-the-city exploits. When Cal finds the novel, however, he discovers that his own life history forms the basis of Stewart's brilliant book about a boozing young slacker. For Cal, this provides sufficient rationale for theft. Cal thrills to instant literary acclaim, talk show circuits, and promises of movie deals until he learns that Stewart had shipped a first draft to an old girlfriend. In a severe sweat, he determines to find her, but soon a much more menacing individual makes her entrance. With just the right proportion of stress, humor, and suspense, Colapinto's fiction debut (after the nonfiction As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl) keeps the reader turning pages. More suspenseful and with a more complex hero than Kurt Wenzel's Lit Life ( reviewed below), another first novel about the business of writing, this is highly recommended for all fiction collections. - Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Colapinto gets almost everything right in this psychological thriller that is, by turns, witty, sly, harrowing, and above all, true to life. Cal Cunningham has dreamt all his life of being a writer, although he has almost nothing on the page. He is shocked when his unassuming roommate, Stewart, shows him a short story, and with sickening envy, Cal realizes it's wonderful. He goes searching for other of Stewart's writings and finds a page-turner of a novel based on Cal's life--all the details that Cal hoped, someday, to put in his own book. When Stewart dies in a bike accident, Cal decides to send off the manuscript in his own name. Fame, money, even Stewart's girlfriend become Cal's. Then he finds out that someone else knows the truth. Written in the first person, Colapinto's debut novel takes the reader along on Cal's wild ride, and we watch transfixed as he sinks to unexpected depths while trying to salvage a writing career and a life that were never really his. The brillant ending, just right for our times, makes a neat final piece to the puzzle. Pair with The Hook [BKL Ja 1 & 15 00], Donald E. Westlake's similarly themed and equally absorbing thriller. Ilene Cooper Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved John Colapinto has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Esquire, Mademoiselle, Us Weekly, and Rolling Stone, where the landmark National Magazine Award-winning article that was the basis for As Nature Made Him first appeared. He is also the author of the novel . He lives in New York City with his wife and son. Read more