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Wednesday, May 19, 2021Fake Names, But Possibly Real Outrage
Since it has just dropped on Netflix, a word about The Woman in the Window, the new agoraphobic thriller starring Amy Adams that is soon to be autoplaying on your home screens. And that word is "Don't". I don't have any concrete or informed opinions about the movie itself, which may well prove to be the perfect metaphor for having been stuck at home for the past fourteen months. I don't have any comment about the fact that it was scheduled for theatrical release in 2020, but apparently confused test audiences, and was re-edited accordingly. It may be trashy fun, or it may be trashy trash. Or it may be good fun! However, I don't want the author to get a penny from your Netflix clicks, and just in case he does, I'm asking you: Don't. I'm a big believer in the proverbial activity of "voting with your wallets" in order to chasten the behaviors of millionaire, success-story celebrities and personalities. Not even getting into the "infamous TERF"-ness of J.K. Rowling that has sent certain fans scurrying to their keyboards to Google how much tattoo-removal might cost, I remember advising students to back away from the Twilight series in print and onscreen when it was revealed that author Stephanie Meyer was tithing 10% of her royalties to a church that was trying to disenfranchise gay rights in California law. Or when fraudulent memoirist James Frey was signing up junior authors for a "fiction factory" that allowed him to use pseudonyms to profit from their grunt work. None of that latter story rings a bell? Well, I'll just mention that there is no "Pittacus Lore" behind the I Am Number Four series and who knows how many other media-ready YA books. There is also no A.J. Finn. There is, however, a Dan Mallory, a publisher who has variously blagged his way into high-paying jobs despite being fabulist who spun stories about the cancer deaths of his parents and his own debilitating illnesses. He used the "Finn" pseudonym to write the novel The Woman in the Window is based on during the popular wave of post-Gone Girl women's suspense fiction (women writers used to partially neutralize or obscure their gender by using initials instead of a first name, so it seems like he's riding on that assumption with his pen-name), which is about a sociopath who lies to feel power over others and manipulates them to relish in superiority. (I won't spoil who the sociopath is, but I will mention that the New Yorker article very much does reveal the twist at the end of the book and film.) A telling moment in the article is that while the author was kept anonymous during early bidding for the publication rights of the book, when Simmons' true identity was revealed, his reputation was such that all other publishers except his employer dropped their bids like a hot potato. His reputation was that toxic.  In wandering through bookstores, I have occasionally seen A.J. Finn's name on the pull-quotes recommending a hot new book. That, to me, has always been a hint that the fabulist must have edited the book in question. And I subsequently assume that it must be terrible. So I will instead end by mentioning two books that sounded interesting when I heard about them in the course of reading about this last story. The first is a mystery novel from an author that worked with Mallory and who is interviewed in the New Yorker article. Sophie Hannah was commissioned by the Agatha Christie estate to write a new Poirot novel (the detective from the upcoming film Death on the Nile), and her book Closed Casket features a character who is clearly influenced by, if not based on, Mallory. The article states that the working title for Casket was "You’re So Vain, You Probably Think This Poirot’s About You." I mean, that's just delicious. The second is a book that is so similar to the essential plot and structure (again: spoilers in the link) of The Woman in the Window that if you are interested in that story, you can probably get the same bang for your buck without lining Mallory/Finn's pockets. Saving April by Sarah Denzil seems to not actually be a case of plagiarism or of Mallory using his position in publishing to see the outline of a to-be-published book and rush his own version into production. It seems to be a remarkable coincidence — or potential further evidence that computers could probably finish all of our genre-based, formulaic plots for us, with only the push of a few buttons. # posted by Mr. Russell @ 11:21 AM
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