This was a really fun read in my opinion. Florence Darrow, and aspiring author but currently not making any progress on her novel while she is at a publicist, is a relatively “by the books” girl…unless she is not. She sometimes spirals into these unhinged episodes. The first one of these, she tries to blackmail her boss by stalking him…which promptly gets her fired, successfully leaving her in an extremely precarious financial situation.
Luckily, she is hired to be an assistant to the author behind the pseudonym of Maud Dixon, one of the most famous authors whose debut novel was a hit. She moves to a remote cabin in upstate new your to live with Helen Wilcox, the woman behind the name. She falls in love with the life of Helen, an author, eccentric, candid, no holds-barred woman. Her and Helen go to morocco, but her and Helen get into a car accident. Florence survives but thinks that Helen dies. She again has another spiral and decides to assume Helens identity, telling nobody that Helen is dead and denying the existence of “Florence.” But as her lie starts to become riddled with holes, Helen shows up as “Florence” and reveals the plot to take Florence’s life to get out of a murder investigation (which her not-so-fictional book was based off of) back in the US. Things continue to spiral, with Helen and Florence seemingly competing for who can become more radically committed to the life of Maud Dixon. The original Florence ends up killing Helen, killing Helen’s agent (the only one who knows the Maud Dixon personality), and assuming Maud’s pen. She finds Helens second manuscript, which was to be a retelling of the actual Florence-Helen story.
This book was fun, the unhinged narrator was written expertly, and the idea was totally original. I did see the Helen-framing coming before it was revealed, but not too soon. And did not see the Tarentino-esque ending.
Looking forward to her next novel
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by pcornell99