Steven Carter (3) (1961–)

Wendell Newton advertises his writing course in the back of a literary magazine, stating that he will help aspiring writers through his structured lessons. He begins working with a small collection of writers, sending out assignments that are explained through personal stories, such as the time when he was a young soldier working as a secretary to a general and was able to blackmail his superior into giving him a European vacation. In turn, his students send him whatever writing they want show more to, such as the ex-model and stripper who writes about the people who become obsessed with her, which quickly includes Wendell. Or Linda, who sends Wendell essays about stalking him and breaking into his house. The only student who is actually writing fiction, a tense crime novel that he sends in chapters, is the one who receives Wendell's strangest replies. Over weeks of correspondence, we find Wendell to be shadier than his early professionalism let on.

A satire of the snail mail writing schools of the past, the reader is plunged into slice-of-life stories from each character that may last a few paragraphs or ten pages. It may be a kidnapping, a romance, or a snotty reply from Wendell. Expertly woven together, it's both fun and remarkably well-written. show less

I picked up this book on a whim while browsing the new arrivals section at my local library. It had an unusual cover and a premise that intrigued me. Fortunately that was enough to make me take a chance on this unusual novel.

Wendell Newton runs a writing correspondence course. The novel is comprised entirey of the lessons Newton mails to his current crop of three students and the writing samples they mail back for his critique. The three students make colorful characters in their own right show more (a PhD flunkie/lounge singer, a desperate housewife/stalker, and a tractor salesman seeking editorial feedback on an offbeat mystery novel).

As the lessons progress, we learn that Newton is more charlatan than artist, dispensing half-baked writing advice while looking for angles to take advantage of his students. We also become engrossed by the tractor salesman's novel within the novel (entitled "Undress, My Lovely" if the cover art is to be believed), a bizarre caper written in a hard-broiled style and populated by small-town crooks and two-bit losers. And we're entertained by the tension between the tractor salesman's vision of suspenseful, plot-driven genre fiction and the instructor's preachings that good writing must be subtle and plotless, as well as devoid of blood-pumping action or sex.

I won't say more about how the instructor and his students' lives ultimately intersect. But I will say that this book offers a unique combination of suspenseful entertainment, interesting musings on what makes good (and bad) writing, and thoughtful riffs on how the art a writer creates is inevitably derived from what the writer has experienced or read elsewhere. If only some of this novel's loose threads had been tied together with a bit more care, I wouldn't have bumped this from five stars down to four. show less

Spoilers are apparent. This is a fun book. It isn't great. It is a novel about a guy who is writing about Howard Hughes and is told as if it is by that guy. He creates stories around snippets of Hughes' life and manages to make everybody mad at him. He also apparently steals an extremely valuable ring that Hughes gave to a woman in Texas, and a fedora belonging to Hughes, and some letters. I guess the story is supposed to be about how the main character tries to take Howard Hughes onto show more himself (with the artifacts), and wants to create a different Hughes that is like himself. show less

This book takes a novel approach in its writing style, comprised entirely of the written communication between an instructor and his students participating in a correspondence school for creative writing. Wendell is a formerly successful author who currently makes his living through these courses. As the lessons progress, it becomes clear that Wendell is picking up as much from his students (sometimes quite literally) as his students are learning from him.

This writing style allowed for the show more creative addition of different points of view and wholly independent plot points. As they are submitted as assignments for the course, these storylines break up the flow in a pleasing way, and each student and his/her stories are well developed. Some of the sections are so well written with such interesting components, I found myself backtracking a little to read them again.

I read this relatively quickly, a sure sign of how much I enjoy a book. Then I came to the end. I can’t even explain it, even if I didn’t mind throwing out spoilers. It just kind of ended. Some of the stories came to their natural conclusions, but one of the most significant is left kind of hanging out there – and the way it ended was actually slightly distasteful – something completely out of character based on the rest of the book. Overall I still enjoyed it, but I knocked off a half star for the sheer bafflement of the end. show less