The Mentor
A Novel
-
-
5.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $4.99
-
- $4.99
Publisher Description
Twenty-five years ago Charles Davis's first novel made him a literary legend. But with his recent work savaged by reviewers, Charles has been paralyzed by self-doubt. Then fate hands him an unexpected muse. Emma Bowles is the young assistant Charles's wife, Anne, hires to bring order to his pressured existence. Where Anne is sleek and elegant, Emma is awkward and self-effacing. But Charles glimpses the intriguing mysteries beneath her small-town demeanor. Soon he is obsessed with Emma, with understanding her, controlling her. By the time Anne realizes she wants this disturbing young woman out of their lives, it's too late. All three are trapped in their own deceptions, and only a savage, shocking act can free them.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Containing traces of The Babysitter, Gaslight, All About Eve and Deathtrap, Stuart's debut psychological thriller creates a wholly original, believable drama out of an archetypal love triangle involving a broken-down literary "genius," his mentally unstable but devoted prot g and his icy wife. Novelist Charles Davis was once New York's literary wunderkind, but that was more than two decades ago. Now 49 and bruised from a series of flops, he is sure his newest novel will be a hit: "Through some confluence of good fortune, DeLillo, Banks and Ford are all absent from this fall's list. There's room for him at the top. Again, after all these years." His wife, Anne Turner, is 13 years younger, a marketing hotshot and media celeb, head of an upscale housewares catalogue. One of Manhattan's most glamorous couples, they hit the skids in public when Charles's book is viciously panned in the New York Times Book Review, and he sinks into depression. Anne hires mousy but efficient temp secretary Emma Bowles to restore order to Charles's disheveled office. But Emma is a seriously troubled young woman who calls herself the "BadGirlSickGirl," and is running from a horrifying past. The story picks up speed while lingering exquisitely on eerie plot twists as Charles seduces Emma, and Anne's suspicions heighten. Discovering that Emma is writing her own novel, creatively blocked Charles "helps" her, while endeavoring to steal it, but he must make sure that his quickly disintegrating muse/workhorse will stay sane enough to keep writing. Meanwhile, Anne is pregnant, but Charles probably isn't the father, and Charles's own beloved mentor, his most trusted friend, is the only person who senses, and threatens to spoil, Charles's plagiarist scheme. The unraveling of the plot is ultra-stylish, equal parts ghoulish and cavalier; in Stuart's sharply observed Manhattan, an air of bemused morbidity festers amid the swanky circles of publishing and publicity, and the ambitious souls of the three main characters are creepily, masterfully authentic. BOMC alternate selection; rights sold in the U.K.
