Books |
It Might Have Been What He Said
Eden Collinsworth
By
Published: Jan 01, 2006
Category:
Fiction
Isabel Simpson can’t say she wasn’t warned. John Vance, her close friend and very wise judge of character, told her: James Willoughby was trouble.
Yes, James writes well — Isabel can’t stop reading his piece in the New York Times travel section. But John Vance is quite clear. James is "impossible to work with." He’s from blue blood — "tired blood."
But Isabel is a publisher on the lookout for a writer with a unique voice. She calls James’s agent to set up a lunch. And gets another warning: "Do you understand how impossible he is? I could barely find anyone to work with Willoughby and two thousand words. No one could survive him through the completion of a book."
Despite all reasons not to do it, they meet at Orso — because this is that kind of a New York book. That is, upper echelon. Powerful people. Insiders. But not, as in chick lit books, doing stupid things with brand names. These are serious people. Isabel, anyway. You don’t get to be head of a publishing house — even with a lot of luck — at 28 without having a steely intelligence, a smart tongue and a ton of self-confidence.
Disclosure: I have known Eden Collinsworth for two decades. When she had a magazine, I wrote for it. For a while, she lived across the street; we had the occasional dinner together. What about Eden as a writer? No way. She’s been a publisher. An executive. So this book took me by surprise.
Eden Collinsworth’s biography has a few things in common with Isabel’s. But what most impressed me about "It Might Have Been Something He Said" — and what will keep you reading and make you not want to do anything else until you finish — is that this is a novel. That is, fiction. That is, life with the dull parts removed.
The lunch, for example. Eden Collinsworth is certainly witty. But Isabel is just beyond. The dialogue is Edith Wharton on steroids: smart, fast-paced, dangerous. And mean. James is a callow user, a jerk on the make. And Isabel nails him. Crucifies him, in fact. It doesn’t take long, just a few words, but they’re the right ones. He’s dead. She killed him. And then they get married.
What? Yes. Married. By this time, Collinsworth has laid out James and Isabel’s family histories and personal pathologies. And although you, the reader, are screaming at her not to do it, he won’t change, he can’t change, the romantic in you is saying, yes, go for it, maybe you’ll shoot the moon.
That question — do we change when love strikes? — is the engine of the book. It is the kind of question so first-rate it will survive second-rate characters and plotting. Happily, the characters are so wonderfully quirky they’re far from second-rate; they’re strange and creative and although they’re not like anyone in your life, you care about them. About both of them. Until…..
There is a murder attempt. I’m not spoiling the book to tell you. The book’s opening line is: "Isabel couldn’t remember why she tried to kill her husband….it might have been what he said." And that makes the book a thriller. A special kind of thriller. The kind Dominick Dunne writes.
This is a debut novel? Ha. This is as good as books about New York careerists get. You’re not standing outside, pressing your nose against the glass in this one — you’re in the room. And now you can’t say you haven’t been warned.
