After reading all the parts of Chana’s article about Gabe, I kind of agreed with her critics – it was too self-absorbed. However, I thought they were distracting and sometimes too repetitive to the actual narrative. It’s a lot! On the one hand, these “outside” pieces help us see what seemed to happen, versus what did actually happen. I did get irritated with the structure of the novel, which goes back and forth between past and present, but is also interwoven with excerpts from the original article that Chana wrote about Gabe, as well as numerous other shorter articles and blurbs throughout the novel. Like many mistakes, “the Novelist,” with his undermining behavior, becomes more visible in hindsight. But he is not simply a monster – they clearly had some good times, as evidenced by several vignettes. He probably didn’t create them all, but he fed them for years. He’s insecure, but verbally abusive comments about Chana’s writing, help us understand her own self-doubts. The character of the ex is actually important in this novel. He has similar doubts about his professional choices. We don’t get to look at Gabe quite as closely, but slowly we see he is much more than his public persona. She’s at times self-deprecating, but also brave. She’s both confident about her writing abilities, but at the same time, she questions her choices, including her chosen genre which seems inferior in comparison to the more literary writing her ex-husband, “The Novelist,” did. Suddenly everything is opened up for reflection: her career, her marriage, and her feelings for Gabe.Ĭhana is a complex character – she is both strong and weak, the way real people are. Then, a decade later, she is invited to do a follow-up interview with Gabe. The article goes viral – spurring unprecedented conversation: was the article great or awful? Did or didn’t she sleep with him? Only two people know the truth.
A decade ago she was given unprecedented access to the actor, and she spends much of a weekend learning about the heart-throb who has been controversially cast as the next James Bond. Her successful career as an essayist and interviewer was launched by an interview with Hollywood movie star, Gabe Parker. Chana Horowitz is a busy writer in LA, in her thirties and newly divorced.
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