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Death of the Author
Death of the Author is a serial killer thriller with a literary twist.
In the 1990s, the genre of serial killer fiction is emerging from the pulps into a serious literary occupation. The world's pulpiest authors converge on a sleepy southern city once described by Salman Rushdie as "the ideal setting for a Stephen King novel or horror film" for the inaugural Festival of Multiple Homicide Fiction--only to be killed, in gruesome homage to their most famous works, by a shadowy figure quickly dubbed The Reader.
Rachel Stern is a local multiple homicide writer who is researching a new book with the local police when the first of her colleagues is killed. Her knowledge of the genre soon proves invaluable to the investigation, but as more bodies appear it seems that the killer may be targeting her. Her ex-husband has reappeared and is making a nuisance of himself. The conveners of the festival are trying to play down the rumours of a serial killer preying on their authors. As the murders close around Rachel she is forced to question her own part in the gathering darkness, and to confront the very nature of fiction, of characters and authors.
Death of the Author interweaves Rachel's search for The Reader with chapters from each of the dead authors' fatal books, with a pastiche of styles and a panoply of killers. It is full of gore, dark humour and metadiscourse, and recommended for anyone with an interest in serial killers or literary theory, and particularly anyone who has been to a writers' festival or visited Adelaide, South Australia.
In the 1990s, the genre of serial killer fiction is emerging from the pulps into a serious literary occupation. The world's pulpiest authors converge on a sleepy southern city once described by Salman Rushdie as "the ideal setting for a Stephen King novel or horror film" for the inaugural Festival of Multiple Homicide Fiction--only to be killed, in gruesome homage to their most famous works, by a shadowy figure quickly dubbed The Reader.
Rachel Stern is a local multiple homicide writer who is researching a new book with the local police when the first of her colleagues is killed. Her knowledge of the genre soon proves invaluable to the investigation, but as more bodies appear it seems that the killer may be targeting her. Her ex-husband has reappeared and is making a nuisance of himself. The conveners of the festival are trying to play down the rumours of a serial killer preying on their authors. As the murders close around Rachel she is forced to question her own part in the gathering darkness, and to confront the very nature of fiction, of characters and authors.
Death of the Author interweaves Rachel's search for The Reader with chapters from each of the dead authors' fatal books, with a pastiche of styles and a panoply of killers. It is full of gore, dark humour and metadiscourse, and recommended for anyone with an interest in serial killers or literary theory, and particularly anyone who has been to a writers' festival or visited Adelaide, South Australia.
276 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2012
6 people want to read
About the author
Matt Rubinstein
8 books2 followersI started writing when I was six years old. "Writing" for me meant typing out Enid Blyton books on an old typewriter, word-for-word. Later I learned that writing was more than typing, it was invention; but I also heard that great writers like Hunter S Thompson had also copied out books like The Great Gatsby, in order to feel their construction from the inside.
When I was eleven my mother became a writer, and later she became another writer: first the children's author Gillian Rubinstein, and then the historical fantasy writer Lian Hearn. She taught me the true occupation of writing: I read early drafts of her books and saw the way she revisited and refined them, turning them from ideas into great stories.
At university I wrote a novel in sonnet form inspired by Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate. That book was Solstice, which was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel literary award for unpublished manuscripts and later published by Allen & Unwin. I was asked to turn it into a play for the Adelaide Festival; I was lucky enough to work with some of Australia's best actors and musicians. After that I wrote Nomad, a novel based loosely on my travels in Europe, and it was published by Hyland House.
I then wrote Death of the Author, a post-modern serial killer thriller about a sinister character called The Reader who hunts down writers gathered for a festival of "multiple homicide fiction" in Adelaide. It was accepted by a publisher who then restructured and stopped publishing fiction; and it got me an agent who retired shortly afterwards. The book had kind of fallen between the cracks but I published it as an e-book this year.
I wrote a sequel to Solstice called Equinox, which was serialised on the website of the Sydney Morning Herald and which I am now tweeting over the course of a year. At the same time I wrote a literary mystery novel featuring an untranslatable manuscript that has a dangerous effect on anyone who tries to translate it, a little like the real-life Voynich manuscript. That book was runner-up for the Vogel award and was published as A Little Rain on Thursday in Australia by Text, as Vellum in the UK by Quercus, and by various European publishers.
While working on my most recent novel I became interested in the opportunities technology presents for writers and readers: I built my website, started to use Twitter, and wrote and spoke a lot about the future of the book. In 2012 I won the Calibre Award for my extended essay "Body and Soul: Copyright Copyright Law and Enforcement in the Age of the Electronic Book", which argues that traditional publishers are in real danger from alternative publishing models. I'm now putting my money where my mouth is and experimenting with electronic publishing.
When I was eleven my mother became a writer, and later she became another writer: first the children's author Gillian Rubinstein, and then the historical fantasy writer Lian Hearn. She taught me the true occupation of writing: I read early drafts of her books and saw the way she revisited and refined them, turning them from ideas into great stories.
At university I wrote a novel in sonnet form inspired by Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate. That book was Solstice, which was shortlisted for the Australian/Vogel literary award for unpublished manuscripts and later published by Allen & Unwin. I was asked to turn it into a play for the Adelaide Festival; I was lucky enough to work with some of Australia's best actors and musicians. After that I wrote Nomad, a novel based loosely on my travels in Europe, and it was published by Hyland House.
I then wrote Death of the Author, a post-modern serial killer thriller about a sinister character called The Reader who hunts down writers gathered for a festival of "multiple homicide fiction" in Adelaide. It was accepted by a publisher who then restructured and stopped publishing fiction; and it got me an agent who retired shortly afterwards. The book had kind of fallen between the cracks but I published it as an e-book this year.
I wrote a sequel to Solstice called Equinox, which was serialised on the website of the Sydney Morning Herald and which I am now tweeting over the course of a year. At the same time I wrote a literary mystery novel featuring an untranslatable manuscript that has a dangerous effect on anyone who tries to translate it, a little like the real-life Voynich manuscript. That book was runner-up for the Vogel award and was published as A Little Rain on Thursday in Australia by Text, as Vellum in the UK by Quercus, and by various European publishers.
While working on my most recent novel I became interested in the opportunities technology presents for writers and readers: I built my website, started to use Twitter, and wrote and spoke a lot about the future of the book. In 2012 I won the Calibre Award for my extended essay "Body and Soul: Copyright Copyright Law and Enforcement in the Age of the Electronic Book", which argues that traditional publishers are in real danger from alternative publishing models. I'm now putting my money where my mouth is and experimenting with electronic publishing.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 12, 2013
I was quite pleased with this novel. My interest was immediately peaked by the books description. Set amongst a festival for author's of serial killer fiction, a killer walks among them. Not an ordinary killer by any means; the murderer kills people utilizing methods from the minds of authors that have found their way to print. This killer is merely acting out the gruesome deaths from the very books being celebrated at the literary festival and takes on the identity of a serial killer called "The Reader."
There are many layers to this book that creates an atmosphere of uncertainty as to who the 'bad guy' really is. You have the gathering of authors of serial killer fiction and are granted a peak into their highly competitive world; a world so competitive that you begin to wonder--is the killer one of the authors, angered by a lack of recognition? Or is it a crazed fan that takes the literature too seriously or sees the words as a message from a higher power, motivating their madness? Or is it merely an entity: a product born of the minds of authors of murderous fiction that feeds upon the gruesome pages, gaining strength with each new publication? Who is 'The Reader'?
Time does not stand still as people begin to die, their fates tied to the fates of characters within their books. This novel had me guessing right down to the moment of truth when the identity of the killer is finally revealed. I had guessed wrong countless times, and just as I thought I had finally figured out who the killer is, a new twist would reveal itself and I'd be right back to where I started: clueless.
Saying any more would give elements of the novel away. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which is a blend of mystery, philosophy, and literary appreciation. I say "philosophy" because at many times during the book I found myself wondering who was truly evil. The authors of fictitious and gruesome murders, or the killer with the desire to simply act out what someone else had written. And that is a line of thought that I have not experienced with any other novel.
The writing itself is solid. I never found myself bored or skimming pages. If anything I had to reread a few pages to make sure I didn't miss an important clue. My one and only complaint is that the detectives assigned to catch the killer were a bit too stereotypical for my liking and this stood out more than it might have if the other characters weren't written so uniquely. Due to that, the juxtaposition between the unique characters and the rather stereotypical detectives is quite obvious; however, it was not a large enough issue to keep me from enjoying the novel.
I recommend this read for those that appreciate literature and a unique murder mystery. While it is not likely a book that will stay with you long after you've finished it (hence the lack of 5 stars), it is certainly enjoyable enough if you are looking for a good book to fall into and enjoy.
There are many layers to this book that creates an atmosphere of uncertainty as to who the 'bad guy' really is. You have the gathering of authors of serial killer fiction and are granted a peak into their highly competitive world; a world so competitive that you begin to wonder--is the killer one of the authors, angered by a lack of recognition? Or is it a crazed fan that takes the literature too seriously or sees the words as a message from a higher power, motivating their madness? Or is it merely an entity: a product born of the minds of authors of murderous fiction that feeds upon the gruesome pages, gaining strength with each new publication? Who is 'The Reader'?
Time does not stand still as people begin to die, their fates tied to the fates of characters within their books. This novel had me guessing right down to the moment of truth when the identity of the killer is finally revealed. I had guessed wrong countless times, and just as I thought I had finally figured out who the killer is, a new twist would reveal itself and I'd be right back to where I started: clueless.
Saying any more would give elements of the novel away. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which is a blend of mystery, philosophy, and literary appreciation. I say "philosophy" because at many times during the book I found myself wondering who was truly evil. The authors of fictitious and gruesome murders, or the killer with the desire to simply act out what someone else had written. And that is a line of thought that I have not experienced with any other novel.
The writing itself is solid. I never found myself bored or skimming pages. If anything I had to reread a few pages to make sure I didn't miss an important clue. My one and only complaint is that the detectives assigned to catch the killer were a bit too stereotypical for my liking and this stood out more than it might have if the other characters weren't written so uniquely. Due to that, the juxtaposition between the unique characters and the rather stereotypical detectives is quite obvious; however, it was not a large enough issue to keep me from enjoying the novel.
I recommend this read for those that appreciate literature and a unique murder mystery. While it is not likely a book that will stay with you long after you've finished it (hence the lack of 5 stars), it is certainly enjoyable enough if you are looking for a good book to fall into and enjoy.
Displaying 1 of 1 review