Book At Last
Ever since Michael Patterson started working on a novel in For Better or For Worse, I have been anxiously awaiting its publication. Naturally my motivations have little to do with the book itself, but my wonderings about exactly how far Lynn Johnston will go to make Michael Patterson a success with this book? Will she give a realistic portrayal of book tours and signings, or will she have Michael simply sit back and do nothing to promote it? The other question about which I am interested is the level to which Lynn will have Michael succeed? Will the book be a best-seller and declared to be the great Canadian novel, as I have often have Michael anticipate his outcome to be in April’s Real Blog? Or can Lynn Johnston show some degree of modesty of Mike’s career?
posted by howard at 10:53 PM
6 Comments:
I've always thought that the book represented the strip: an over-rated chunk of nonsense that got romoted because the author fit some criterion the publisher wanted. As Lynn said back when she still had an ouncce of humility, FBoFW was kept alive because they wanted a married woman to author a strip about family life. I assume the publishers were hoping someone like Mike would come along and fill a niche they thought needed to be.
I'm guessing he'll sit back and do nothing and the novel will be a huge success.
It'd be so much more fun if this turned out to be a vanity-press scam, but the $25K has ruled that out.
dreadedcandiru2,
Stone Season as a representation of For Better or For Worse. That's an intriguing idea. As this sequence goes on, it will interesting to make those comparisons to see how well it fits.
aprilp_katje,
I'm guessing he'll sit back and do nothing and the novel will be a huge success.
Before Lynn Johnston started doing all these retcons responding to reader criticism, that would have been my guess too. However, if she has read even a little of the criticism that came from real authors about the Mike's book publishing storyline, then she may try to retcon it to make it more realistic. Her retcons have been ridiculous so far, so I have high hopes for a story even more outrageous than the one you have suggested.
It seems to make the most sense given that Michael seems, to me at least, to represent Lynn as a creative artist. When you add in the fact that the strip took off when she was in her early thirties and had children the same ages as Meredith and Robin, there's an even greater similarity.
dreadedcandiru2,
Michael as Lynn. That makes sense in a certain fashion. She always talks about how Michael ultimately was how she wanted her son to end up as a writer, and Josef Weeder is actually who he turned out to be as a photographer. But that desire to be a writer came from somewhere, and the Lynn is the obvious answer.
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