Sadly, you plan to come to visit and take back your copy of The Worst Novel Ever. I haven't made the time to relocate my list of things to say about your novel on this blog, but even if I did have it right here next to me right now there isn't much reason anymore to explain to you what all my notes mean. You've moved on. You are looking for other ways to make money off your writing. Before I lose this copy, though, let me at least explain what all these pink Post-It tabs mean (if I can remember).Tab 1: I have no idea what this one is marking. It's on a page where Angela's narrator voice is bitching about a card she found wherein Miss Nevada congratulates Angela's husband on his marriage but also regrets not being his wife. This sounds good. It isn't. The flames of rage that Angela supposedly feels are only lukewarm to the reader.
Tab 2: "Angela practically choked on her own saliva." For real? That sentence just about sums up how ridiculous the scene is. Angela is still narrating. She has moved in with Bev and invited her son Josh to dinner at the house. Bev's daughter pushes Josh to tell his mom what's on his mind. He says, "She's talking about . . . how we're so fucked up."Angela then "practically" chokes on "her own saliva" because she is so shocked to hear her son use the "f-word." Supposing that this were satire, the next two paragraphs would be perfect.
"Well . . . well . . .," Angela said, unable to keep the needle moving across her brain.
When the doorbell interrupted in jolly fashion a minute later, Madison leaped to her feet, hurrying to see who might be there. Angela, meanwhile, silently fondled her silverware, turning over her knife, her spoon, her fork, then starting with the knife again. She could hear Bev speaking to Josh, but she didn't pay attention to their conversation. For all she knew, they were discussing how Josh really should have run away from home long ago, before he reached this point where he found it so necessary to speak the kind of words Angela had always hoped she would never hear from him.
Absolutely brilliant if this were about a woman who learns what's really important in life—or at least demonstrates it to the readers. But this is not that story.
Tab 3: The first page of the chapter "Love Potions" is flagged. All of a sudden this novel about a woman who irrationally decides to abandon her son and husband takes a bizarre turn into romantic comedy territory when Angela interferes with Bev's love potion ceremony. Again, for real? The woman who is the full-time care giver for her ailing mother has time to brew up crazy potions that really work? It feels even more like Mama, the vegetable, must be pushing 100 and Bev has been doing this for decades rather than days. Then the potion actually works and "Tree Man" starts to throw himself at Angela. And I want to vomit.
Tab 4: Angela recounts her wedding day in the narrator's stream of consciousness. Apparently she finds the energy to deal with all the insanity of brides because she wishes she had had some guidance back when she was getting married. But it all comes off as the novelist recounting her own simple wedding and looking down her nose at people who place too much importance on picking out flowers and purchasing a veil. After three pages of this trip down memory lane, I wonder why Angela wants to be a wedding coordinator when she obviously hates weddings so much.
Tab 5: This seems to be the first of many tabs flagging the extreme violence in this novel. In this particular case, Angela debates how to stop Brandy and Trevor, her "nearly-weds," from killing each other and demolishing her office furniture shortly before the two have passionate make-up sex in front of her. At this point, we're on page 182—about a third of the way through the story—and the way the violence is written sounds out of place, out of character, and rather alarming. But it's really nothing compared to what's coming farther down the road.
Tab 6: A hundred pages later, we're now at the end of the scene you posted online to entice readers to purchase your novel. Is it a scene about Bev and Angela and Mama and Angela's husband and his possible mistress and Josh, the son we all forget about? No. It's not about any of those people—the family in this family drama. No, this is the scene where Brandy and Trevor fight about Brandy's behavior at her bachelorette party. It's one of the few scenes in which those two characters appear. See previously published posts for more explanation on why I would flag this.
Tab 7: Bev retaliated, swung at Angela, socked her in the jaw.
"Stop it, Bev! Stop being a whore!"
Page 360. The violence and bizarre factor have escalated to new heights. We are reading this from Angela's point of view, which means we will have to read it again from Bev's point of view. The sisters have already gotten into a crazy, brawling fist fight after picking berries one morning somewhere between pages 182 and 360. And we had to read about it twice. And both times it felt strange. These are white women in a supposedly upscale suburban neighborhood. And they're punching each other? Like full-on no-hesitation punching each other in the face. The writing doesn't hide how physical their fights are, but it also doesn't revel in the pain or blood or aftermath of trading punches. So, I don't get it. You want to tell us exactly where these punches land, but it's also like it never happened. Never mind that I thought white women of the suburbs leave each other patronizing and passive-aggressive notes. They make snide remarks. One "forgets" to meet the other for coffee. Shit like that. What are these women doing socking each other in the jaw?
Angela and Bev start their own fight club to try to get their unwelcome aunt to feel so uncomfortable she has to leave the house and abandon the ailing sister she's come to check on. After this particular fight, the aunt packs her bags, calls a cab, and leaves. Angela hugs Bev, and they go on with life like nothing happened. Angela doesn't even need to ice her face. Bev goes on a date.
There is one little nugget in there that gives us some hope that you, the writer, are not completely out of touch with how these sisters might actually behave in the real world: For the longest time Bev stood there staring at Angela, looking like she had plenty on her mind. But then she shrugs her shoulders, tells Angela, "Thank you," and runs off to get ready for her date. And the readers who have made it this far into the book are scratching their heads, wondering if they will have to endure this all a second time from Bev's point of view.
Tab 8: I flagged the first page of the chapter "Pool Party." I clearly remember you being so impressed with the idea of this scorned women sneaking back into her own house to find that her husband has laid out her nightgown on her side of the bed. He sleeps with her nightgown and we are all supposed to be enchanted. I didn't get it back when you originally described it to me, and you said that was because I was too young. As an adult, I think it works even less in the context of the book. But it works for Angela. She is at peace. She drifts off to sleep, spending the whole night in the house where she no longer lives.
The next day Angela becomes a prisoner in this old house of hers, trying not to let the neighbors know she is there and then trying not to let them know she no longer lives there. All the adults from the neighborhood end up in her pool, getting trashed and having a gay old time. One particularly obnoxious character repeatedly snaps plucks her thong bathing suit from between her cheeks. Mostly she is obnoxious because it is so apparent that you wanted us to hate her for being a disgusting bimbo. But I don't really hate her. I hate reading this chapter. I hate that you wrote such a painfully long and ill-conceived chapter.
Tab 9: The last flag is a full-size Post-It. The rest were thin strips I'd cut, but this chapter, "White Trash House," was by far the worst. If Aunt Betty packed her bags and went home on page 360, why am I reading about her again for the first time on page 431. Shoot me. I hate this character. We had plenty of conflict without her, but you're going to make us all read more terribly scripted fights incited by her presence. Meanwhile, we're 60 pages from the end of the entire book and the real problems aren't anywhere near a resolution. You insist on telling this story from two perspectives? Fine. Then at least try to solve some of Angela's problems from the beginning of the book.
Oh my god. I can't even skim this chapter to accurately describe why it is the worst of the worst. But, basically, I have to relive everything that already made me puke earlier in the book. They scream, they fight, they live in some alternate reality. They are completely trashy and don't work to resolve their problems (except to scream and punch each other in the face). Personally, I can't see why Emmett should mend his marriage to Angela or why Mama shouldn't just shrivel up and die from embarrassment. Who would want to know these women?
So, there you go. That's what those Post-It's mean. Soon you'll have your copy back, but it might be another 10 years before you decide to revisit it as a possible money-making venture. By that time I might have located my notes and finished my thesis on why this is the worst novel ever.
