Fatal Attraction: A Novel

by H.B. Gilmour

Dan Gallagher is a happy man. He is a rising young lawyer, with a loving wife, and an adorable daughter. Just one tiny thing is missing. Excitement.

In steps Alex Forrest. She is bright, gorgeous, sexy, and she takes Dan on an unbelievable one-night fling with no strings attached.

That's what she says. That's what he believes. But the truth turns out to be different Because Alex is playing for keeps-and she'll do anything to make Dan hers. Anything.

Genres: Thriller, Media Tie In, Fiction, Romance

222 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1988

About the author

H. B. Gilmour was a bestselling author of children's books. She grew up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with her mother and the extended family and fondly remembered writing her very first poem for Arbor Day when she was just eight years old. As a teenager, she moved to Florida to live with her father. She attended college there and then moved back to New York City.

Gilmour’s first publishing job was at E.P. Dutton. In 1964 she joined Bantam Books where she worked as copywriter, editor, and copy chief and as an associate director of marketing. She was married to Bruce Gilmour in 1968. She had a child, Jessica, with him in 1970. They were divorced in 1972. Her first novel "The Trade", a trashy paperback about the publishing business, was published in 1969.

She wrote novelizations (including Saturday Night Fever) and children's books (including Muppets books) while working full-time at Bantam and raising a child on her own. She published her second original novel "So Long, Daddy" in 1985. The artwork for the dust jacket of the hardcover release includes a photo of her daughter, Jessica. Her third novel was "Ask Me If I Care", a book about a teenage girl who gets in with the wrong crowd.

In 1992 she joined the book division at Scholastic, leaving in 1995 to pursue writing full-time. She focused her energy on books for "tweens" and children which is what gave her the most joy.

She met John Johann, whom she would later marry, in 1992. They later moved to Cornwallville in upstate New York where she happily tended to the garden she never had in the city until her death. She died on June 21, 2009 of pneumonia due to complications from lung cancer. She is survived by her husband John, daughter Jessica, stepchildren Wendy and John, Jr. and step-grandchildren Reef, Riley, John Jr. and Jasmine.

Reviews

[Bren fall in love with the sea. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was just basically the movie fatal attraction in a book. It didn’t really different from the movie. Despite the fact that the movie is compulsively watchable and the book is compulsively readable I have a deep distaste for the story mainly because of the bunny scene. And because it’s just a horrible story all around. Shorter than most of my reviews but nothing much really to say about this one.

[Unsolved ☕︎ Mystery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty decent novelization of the movie; Very close to movie, word for word.

I think it explained things that the movie did not.

If you love the movie, read this book.

[Arwen56 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Romanzo e film che ne è stato tratto si equivalgono, essendo il secondo fedelissimo al primo. Indubbiamente, in entrambi i casi, non ci muoviamo in scenari di grande spessore, né a livello di scrittura, né a livello di narrazione. Tuttavia spiace che la protagonista femminile, Alex Forrest, sia stata tratteggiata come una “fuori di testa”. Spiace perché due domande intelligenti le fa:

1) Perché se Dan Gallagher è così felice, come afferma di essere, condividendo la vita con la moglie Beth e la figlia Ellen finisce poi per andare a letto con la suddetta Alex Forrest?
2) Perché Dan Gallagher dà per scontato che non debbano esserci conseguenze al suo gesto e che la sua vita possa procedere invariata, senza alcuna scossa nonostante il suo comportamento?

Se queste due domande le avesse poste una persona senza turbe psichiche e, di conseguenza, si fossero potuti evitare la spirale di inutile violenza, i soliti colpi di scena e la banale chiusa, la situazione sarebbe stata molto più interessante. Ne sarebbe anche potuto risultare un romanzo di un certo rilievo.

Peccato.

[Jessie Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun novelization! I’ve seen the movie countless times and still found that the book was a page turner.

[Carmen Marciante · Rating 3 out of 5]

Romanzetto carino che si fa leggere nei momenti di riposo tra una lettura impegnata e un'altra. Film che ricordo come un gran successo, accompagnato da una grande nostalgia per gli anni ottanta

[Chiara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inizialmente credevo fosse un semplice romanzetto stile "harmony" ma andando avanti il libro è risultato abbastanza inaspettato. Lettura scorrevole.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan Gallagher, a lawyer, is a happy married family man in New York. When his wife and daughter go upstate for the weekend, he goes for a drink with a colleague called Alex Forrest and one thing leads to another. But it’s not just a weekend fling for Alex and she wants Dan all for herself.
The novelisation of the 1987 film, this is very briskly paced (I reckon it’s less than 50k words) and well told, with a nice sense for the family side of things, as well as the raunch. It doesn’t pack the punch the film did (I saw it at the cinema when it first came out and the entire place went back a row in fright at the climax, I’d never seen anything like it), but it faithfully reproduces it, rather than the more downbeat ‘unseen’ ending. My only issue was Alex, to be honest - she’s painted as a monster (as I’m sure she was in the film, it’s been a while since I saw it) but, reading it now (and yes, I know that you can’t apply modern thinking to a book that’s 37 years old), she’s clearly suffering with mental issues. But that was the film, that was the climate then and the novelisation follows through - it also brushes over how easily Dan is able to get away with his indiscretion, which I remember at the time thinking was odd. So yes, it’s a well-written book of a cleverly made film and if you have fond memories, it’ll work well for you but your mileage may vary.

[Mikepottz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dan with the great job, loving wife and daughter seemed to be missing something and when the chance arrived had a weekend of fun with a women. After the weekend affair finishes and Dan regrets his indiscretion, the women will rang him insistently, slash her own wrist (the music of Madame Butterfly) still lingering in the air, destroy his car, boil his child's pet rabbit with carrots, try to stab his wife, this is intense psychological breakdown and a tragedy on both sides. The ending bathroom scene is frighteningly chilling.

[Ashley Otieno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely quick and easy read (you could read it in an afternoon, it's short), but very exciting and a page turner! I have yet to see the movie, but the imagery was fantastic. I'm assuming since this was written AFTER the movie, that it's basically the same story, just with more details about what's going on in Dan's head. The book brought out feelings of anger, disgust, frustration, fear, and pity. Beth and Ellen deserve better and Dan is trash for what he did.

[Ambra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Film fedelissimo al libro. Nulla di eccezionale, si legge d'un fiato.

[Ilaria Andreotti · Rating 5 out of 5]

wow. bellissimo. breve conciso dritto al punto. scorrevole. si legge in una sola seduta. non ho visto il film ma questo libro merita. mi sono piaciuti tutti i personaggi.

[⚔️Kelanth⚔️ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Non che ci sia molto da dire su questo romanzo: chi ha apprezzato il film, apprezzerà di sicuro anche il libro, sembra infatti di leggere il copione.

In entrambi i casi, comunque, non ci muoviamo in scenari di grande spessore, né se analizziamo la scrittura, né se prendiamo come esempio la narrazione.

Credo che la storia sia conosciuta anche dai sassi, visto che il film sarà stato passato in televisione qualche migliaio di volte e sinceramente non mi ricordo neanche perchè acquistai questo libro: in ogni caso è la dimostrazione di come un uomo può rovinarsi a causa di un'amante che ha dei gravi problemi mentali.

Lettura scorrevole, senza nessuna pretesa. Ne sarebbe anche potuto risultare un romanzo di un certo rilievo, ma così non è stato.

[Marti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Questo libro mi ha preso in una maniera assurda. Semplice ma avvincente

[Elisa Vangelisti]

noioso

[Giorgia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libretto semplice e leggero

[BRNTerri · Rating 4 out of 5]

MY THOUGHTS: The novel was written by Harriet B. Gilmour and was published seven months after the film came out and is pretty much the same as the film with a lot of the exact dialogue. I was hoping the novel would be different in some way, or have the alternate ending , which was actually the original one and first of the two to be filmed, and the one the film didn't use, but the book used the same as the film. The original ending is the more believable of the two but was more boring for a thriller.

The storyline and two main characters are severely underdeveloped and needed to be fleshed out a lot more. The novel is at least 100 pages too short (it's only 222 pages). We need to know all there is to know about Alex's background, what she's ever been diagnosed with, and if she has a history of obsessing over men but we learned nothing at all about her, which is a shame. I think that was done on purpose so that we wouldn't have any sympathy for her.

The ending used just isn't plausible to me. It just wouldn't go down like that in real life. Dan's wife Beth being angry for just a moment about the affair and threating to kill Alex makes no sense to me. In real life a person would be really upset and especially so at the person who cheated on them...not the stranger they cheated with. Instead we get a weak character in Beth who's angry at the wrong person.

I think Glenn Close did a decent job of portraying a mentally unstable person. She showed agitation when she was upset and especially so when she yelled 'get out!' and kicked Michael off the bed

The plot has slight similarities to the opera Madame Butterfly  that Alex loves, which I'd never heard about before this.

BOOK VS. FILM:

There's a scene in the film where Dan tells Alex that he can't see her again, then Alex kicks him in his lower back, pushing him off the bed, then she slits her wrists before he leaves (the look on Dan's face is priceless when he notices it). He bandages them up, then asks Alex why she's so unhappy. She says, 'I'm so lonely' in reply. He doesn't ask her that in the film.

There's a scene in the film where Dan breaks into Alex's and snoops around after she tells him she's pregnant. He opens her medicine cabinet and we see several prescription bottles. In the book he writes down the names of the prescriptions and has a friend look into what they're for (they're uppers, downers, et cetera), but doesn't do that in the film.

In the book when Dan's driving home from work with the rabbit, he thinks he sees Alex following two cars behind him in the next lane. In the film he doesn't see her following.

Right after that near the end of the book when Dan brings home the rabbit at night, he thinks he sees Alex watching through the window. She feels sick and gags watching the happy scene and runs off. Sometime after that when Dan's in the yard he sees some tissue where he thought he'd seen Alex, presumably where she wiped her mouth off or something after vomiting. In the film Dan doesn't see her watching nor does he find used tissue in the yard.

It's said in the book that Ellen tells them that Alex said 'nasty' things about her mother when she was at the amusement park with her but that comment's left out of the film.

The book also describes Alex as having pale green eyes and being pale yet tan.

The film was based on James Dearden's cowritten 1980 British short film called Diversion , which you can watch here . Unlike in Fatal Attraction, it's the male, Guy, who instigates the affair, not Erica. Erica's more immature and jealous than Alex, which seems more realistic.