Shriver: A Novel (No Series) - Softcover

Belden, Chris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501119397 ISBN 13: 9781501119392

Verlag: Touchstone, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

In this charming, clever, and darkly satiric novel set at a writers’ conference, one man finds himself caught in a whirlwind of literary pretention, a suspect in a criminal investigation, and hopelessly in love with a woman who thinks he’s someone else.

Mistaken for a famous but reclusive author of the same name, lonely Shriver attends a writers’ conference at a small Midwestern liberal arts college. Completely unfamiliar with the novel he supposedly wrote and utterly unprepared for the magnitude of the reputation that precedes him, Shriver is feted, fawned over, featured at stuffy literary panels, and barely manages to play it cool. Things quickly go awry when one of the other guest authors suddenly disappears and Shriver becomes a prime suspect in the investigation. Amidst eager fans, Shriver must contend with a persistent police detective, a pesky journalist determined to unearth his past, and a mysterious and possibly dangerous stalker who seems to know his secret. But most vexing of all, Shriver’s gone and fallen in love with the conference organizer, who believes he’s someone else.

When the “real” Shriver (or is he?) appears to claim his place among the literati, the conference—and Shriver’s world—threaten to unravel.

Filled with witty dialogue, hilarious antics, and a cast of bizarre and endearing characters, Shriver is at once a touching love story, a surreal examination of identity, and an affectionate tribute to the power of writing.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Chris Belden was born and raised in Canton, Ohio. He attended the University of Michigan, where he received a BA in Film & Video Studies. After college he worked lousy day jobs for several years while playing drums in the band The Slang. He later moved to New York City, where he worked in the publishing industry and started writing fiction in earnest. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including American Fiction, SN Review, and Skidrow Penthouse. He is coauthor of the feature film Amnesia, and has also written extensively for the stage. He received an MFA from the Fairfield University MFA Program, and has taught writing at Fairfield University, as well as at such nontraditional venues as senior centers, soup kitchens, and a maximum-security prison. Belden lives in Connecticut with his family.

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Shriver Chapter One
Somewhere between takeoff and landing, Shriver had lost his ability to read. Floating high above the clouds in the American Airlines Dash-8 twin-propeller plane, row nine, seat A, he gazed down upon the handwritten pages from which he planned to read at the conference, and his eyes failed him. The words blurred and merged together, the little blue letters piling up into one thick mass of ink. He blinked, and blinked again. He took off his glasses, retrieved a handkerchief from his coat pocket, and wiped his eyes. He looked at the stitched letters embroidered on the handkerchief—CRS, clear as day—then back at the page. The words remained unreadable. He took another sip of whiskey and cola, let the sweet concoction glaze his throat. That’s better. He peered out the window, and everything came back into sharp focus. The clouds shone white with highlights of pale blue. Miles below, service roads divided the flat prairie into vast brown squares. Shriver looked back to the page, but the words again began to collide with one another. He turned to the corpulent lady next to him, who sat sleeping with her head resting atop her voluminous bosom. The details of her fleshy face were clearly defined, down to the individual black whiskers above her lip. Back to the page: a blur. He grabbed the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket in front of him and opened to random pages. THE TEN BEST GOLF COURSES IN THE US . . . SHOPPING FOR ANTIQUES IN SAVANNAH . . . MALLS OF AMERICA. He shut his eyes and tried to breathe.

Six months earlier, there had been a letter. Dear Mr. Shriver, it began beneath the letterhead of a small liberal-arts college located in the middle of the country, As coordinator of ——— College’s annual writers’ conference, I would like to officially invite you to attend this year’s event as one of our featured authors.

At this point, Shriver had had to reexamine the envelope to make sure the letter was not intended for someone else. But there was his name, his address, all correctly labeled. Very strange.

Though your work has been controversial, even divisive, my colleagues have decided that you would be a valuable addition to this year’s event, especially since the theme of this, our thirtieth anniversary as one of the country’s premier literary conferences, will be LITERATURE AS CONFRONTATION. The consensus is that few living writers would be more appropriate to grace our stage this year than you and the other invited guest authors.

There followed some details about the event, including an outline of what would be expected of him: a one-hour reading, a panel discussion, an informal meeting with students from the university. Of course, the letter continued, in between these scheduled events you will be free to attend readings and panels by our other featured authors, and to enjoy the many planned receptions.

The letter had been signed, Best wishes, Prof. Simone Cleverly, and was accompanied by a self-addressed stamped envelope to be used for Shriver’s reply. And there was a handwritten postscript: I understand you do not have a telephone, Professor Cleverly wrote in a sensible, ruler-straight cursive, and so we are left this old-fashioned, and somehow appropriate, channel of communication—namely, writing. Nevertheless, if you have any questions, please feel free to call.

Shriver had immediately read the letter twice more, then again. He set the letter down on the bed, which was where he read all his mail, and stroked the furry neck of his trusty tuxedo cat, Mr. Bojangles. Who would take the trouble to play such a strange practical joke on him? he wondered. He thought of his old friend Cecil Wymanheimer, who had once arranged a date for him with a rather convincing transvestite—but wasn’t poor Cecil dead? Or it could have been Chuck Johnson, Shriver’s mischievous old college roommate. Though he hadn’t spoken to Chuck in at least twenty years, this definitely was the type of tomfoolery his friend would go in for. There was the time, as a bachelor party gag, Chuck had ferried Shriver around town to various bars and strip clubs, getting him drunker and drunker, until some off-duty police officers Chuck had hired “arrested” Shriver on charges of lewd and lascivious behavior. Hilarious! Yes, only Chuck Johnson was capable of such chicanery.

The reason Shriver was so suspicious of the invitation was that he was not a writer at all. He had never written any books, had never written a page of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama—he had never even written a screenplay. The only writing he was capable of was the occasional fan letter to his favorite newscaster, Tina LeGros, of the Channel 17 Action News Team. Dear Ms. LeGros, he wrote just last week, Just a brief note to express my admiration for the way you conducted yourself during last evening’s interview with our less-than-forthcoming mayor. He was very proud of these letters, some of which ran to several handwritten pages—one went on for seven, inspired by Tina’s ill-conceived change of hairstyle from an attractive, shoulder-length shower of blond to one of those stiff, helmetlike do’s that all the lesser female newscasters favored—but Shriver was definitely not a writer.

Nevertheless, to show he was a good sport, he scribbled his acceptance on a sheet of legal paper, stuffed it into the envelope, and mailed it off. Dear Chuck, he wrote, It will be my pleasure to attend your prestigious conference. I only hope I do not disappoint you. To his surprise, a few weeks later he received more information about the conference, as well as round-trip air tickets. We are pleased that you will be able to attend, “Professor Cleverly” wrote in an accompanying note. And don’t worry about disappointing us—your mere presence will be a great victory for the conference. In a postscript she added, I’m not sure who “Chuck” is, but we are absolutely thrilled about this.

Would Chuck Johnson go to such lengths? Whoever was behind this, Shriver thought at the time, was certainly resourceful and determined.

When he opened his eyes aboard Flight 1010 and looked again at the sheaf of paper in his hands, the words once more crumpled and folded in on themselves. He finished his drink and rolled an ice cube around his mouth to suck up the last of the whiskey. He wiped his forehead with the handkerchief and gazed out the airplane window. Just a few feet away a propeller whirred invisibly. Down below, clouds floated on the air like shaving foam on water. Some resembled animals—a duck, a sheep, a sleeping cat. That one there looked like the face of his ex-wife, with her typical expression of impatience. He felt a deep, burning sense of shame as she glared at him from a mile away, mocking him. He had considered sending her a card, telling her about the conference—he even wrote one out, using a nonchalant tone to inform her that he had been invited as a guest to a prestigious literary event—but then he remembered he didn’t know where she lived, and he threw the note away. Besides, she would never have believed him. You’re no writer, she would say in that voice that could cut a diamond in half.

He pressed the overhead button, and moments later, a flight attendant arrived wearing an expression of amused inconvenience.

“May I order another whiskey and cola?” Shriver asked.

There had been little correspondence from Professor Cleverly in the intervening months. She wrote once to inform him that she had ordered copies of his book—a novel Shriver had never even heard of—to be sold at the conference, and expressed hope that he would make himself...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Touchstone
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1501119397
• ISBN 13: 9781501119392
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Van Ditmar Boeken, VDB Sales; sales@vanditmar.nl; ; Hondiuslaan 44; Utrecht; 3528 AB; Niederlande