Perhaps as a reader, I have finally had enough of books that are trying to be Rebecca. Or perhaps it is just that the story doesn’t transpose well into a modern setting, but Jillian Cantor‘s latest novel The Fiction Writer didn’t quite work for me.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s a compelling read. It’s got a mystery to solve (sort of), and a cast of characters that it’s impossible to trust. But the elements of the original novel that made it such an enduring classic were either not there, or fell flat the majority of the time. The result is a run of the mill tale of domestic noir which is quick to devour, but that fails to satisfy.
The Fiction Writer follows Olivia Fitzgerald, once a literary star on the rise, who is reassessing her career as a writer after her second novel (itself a retelling of Rebecca in one of the novel’s many meta plot twists) flopped spectacularly. Her agent offers her the opportunity of a lifetime, working as a live-in writer for shadowy billionaire figure Henry Asherwood who has requested Olivia write a book about his grandmother. A grandmother who he claims du Maurier based her best-known novel on. Needing money and trying to escape a fresh break up, Olivia agrees.
But like all Max de Winter types, Asherwood is a heady mix of sexy and threatening, and soon Olivia is not only his hired writer, but also a potential love interest for the recently widowed billionaire. The closer Olivia gets to him, the more she begins to question the things she’s been told.
Interspersed between scenes of Olivia’s time in Malibu, the reader is given snippets of a book called The Wife, a deliberately vague account that may not be authored by — or about– the person you first think.
Ultimately, the novel is readable, but doesn’t bear much scrutiny, so it’s not one to think too hard about. The story is fairly predictable and there are too many twists for any of them to have the kind of impact I think the author was gunning for.
I say, stick to the original if you’re looking for a du Maurier hit, but pick this one up if you love the Malibu setting of a Taylor Jenkins Reid novel and don’t mind a protagonist who tends to be a bit 2D.
THREE STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
The Fiction Writer by Jillian Cantor is available now from Simon & Schuster Australia. Grab yourself a copy from Booktopia HERE.
