The Writing Class [Paperback]

Jincy Willett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2009

Amy Gallup was a promising writer once--published and highly praised at twenty-two. It was all downhill from there, and now, year in and year out, she teaches a writing workshop at the local university extension. And this semester begins just the same as the others. But then there's a threatening phone call, followed by obscene threats worked into the student's peer evaluations. Then a murder--and every one of the students is a suspect. The clues are hidden in their writing, and she (and we) can solve the murder only by looking more closely at each writer's attempts at fiction. Hilarious, vicious, and elegantly written, The Writing Class examines the desperation, perversion, and mania of the writing life through an unforgettable mystery story.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Can a class of wannabe novelists solve a murder in their midst? That's the premise of this dark comedy of the absurd from Willett (Winner of the National Book Award), a boisterous satire of pseudointellectuals, impotent writers and the adult extension programs of public universities. The only things Amy Gallup, a once-noted California author, has published in years are blurbs of other writers' work. Amy's only income comes from teaching fiction writing to a motley collection of varyingly talented prepublished adults. Someone in the class is making threatening phone calls and sending extremely cruel notes to other students. When two of the students are murdered, a deep sense of danger takes hold. Yet the class goes on. Amy's lectures actually constitute a damn fine guide to writing fiction, while Willett's prose has sparkling moments (The line was playful, offhand, the poem itself a smug, imperious cat stretch). The tension is so strong that readers can hardly resist the temptation to peek ahead and see which student is the killer. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This is a marvelous toy of a book, full of wry surprises and sly twists. The premise may not excite: Amy Gallup, fat, middle-aged, and reclusive, is a truly fine teacher, and she teaches a writing class for university extension courses in Southern California. Her class holds the usual suspects: among them, the doctor, the lawyer, the prim but very smart older woman, two folks named Tiffany, and Carla, who has taken this class with Amy for years. Quite soon everyone starts getting odd phone calls and odder notes. Two people in the group die. The university cancels the class, but they continue to meet. Along the way, Willett dispenses, with some very dark humor, an enormous amount of good information about the way fiction works or doesn’t, and about the way publishing works or doesn’t. And drawing on the work of the students in Amy’s class, there are delicious examples of poor, mediocre, and excellent writing, and, behind it all, there is a finely wrought character study of how Amy came to be what she is. Extremely clever and quite enjoyable. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312428413
• ISBN-13: 978-0312428419
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (42 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #496,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "We're going to have some interesting times together.", June 27, 2008

By 

E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Writing Class (Hardcover)

In Jincy Willett's "The Writing Class," Amy Gallup is conducting a fiction workshop in a southern California university. She is nearing sixty, eats and drinks too much, and has grown increasingly jaded. Although she was a published novelist at twenty-two, her success was modest and short-lived, and she has written nothing of note (except for a lackluster blog and biographical sketches) for many years. Amy's closest companion is her old basset hound, Alphonse, and when she looks back at her life, it is with a rueful sadness. "While everyone else tried to live 'in the moment,' Amy learned to hide from hers. It was the only thing she worked at, really." Her existence consists, for the most part, of dread and boredom. Her teaching job is a poorly paid gig with no health benefits, but after conducting the class for fifteen consecutive quarters, she can do it in her sleep. Sometimes, when she has a decent group of students, working with them brings her a modicum of pleasure.

Amy's current class is an unusual mix, including: Dr. Richard Surtees, a handsome and arrogant physician; Pete Purvis, a pale and reserved young man; the matronly Dorothy (Dot) Hieronymus; Sylvester Reyes, a tall and broad-shouldered high-school football coach; Marvy Stokes, a balding chemistry teacher; the sharp and muscle-bound Frank Waasted, who holds a doctorate on magical realism; Edna Wentworth, an intelligent, no-nonsense former schoolteacher; Tiffany Zuniga, a pretty and smug young woman; Charlton Heston (call me Chuck), who enjoys making wisecracks; a lawyer named Harold Blasbalg; and the obese and enthusiastic Carla Karolak, a garishly dressed acolyte who has been enrolled in Amy's workshop for the past six quarters. Carla idolizes Amy and has committed her beloved mentor's lessons to memory. Unfortunately, it soon becomes apparent that one of Amy's students is a homicidal maniac.

At its best, "The Writing Class" is hilarious. The early chapters are delightfully sarcastic and lead the reader to expect an above-average mystery with satirical overtones. Willett skewers the conventions of writing workshops. The earnest students nervously bring in their mostly hackneyed and horribly written manuscripts, hoping for positive feedback and constructive criticism. Some of the participants are desperate, others pretentious, and a few have an air of indifference, as if they are sitting in the class merely to pass the time. Amy is a well-drawn and original protagonist, "a bitter, peculiar person, aware at all times of her bitterness and peculiarity." We cannot help but sympathize with this self-aware individual who has made an uneasy truce with her misery.

Alas, the author is unable to sustain the clever tone of her introductory chapters. After the first murder, "The Writing Class" becomes a standard whodunit, in which the students and teacher take on the role of amateur sleuths. Amy uses her expertise to analyze her students' writing styles and the killer's poison pen letters, hoping to find clues that will lead to the perpetrator's identity. For some inexplicable reason, the police have little interest in solving the crimes. "The Writing Class" starts out as a perceptive and bittersweet spoof (touching on the themes of loneliness, the creative process, the beauty of language, and the sadness of lost opportunities). There are some wonderful passages, including this one: "Only in art were there clichés; never in nature. There were no ordinary human beings. Everybody was born with a surprise inside." Unfortunately, like Amy's once promising career, "The Writing Class" ultimately loses steam, and ends not with a bang but with a whimper.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Beginning writers beware!, July 8, 2008

By 

Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Writing Class (Hardcover)

Having taught a community ed. novels class several times, I could really relate to this book. The main character, Amy Gallup, is an atypical heroine to say the least. She is overweight and plain and bordering on agoraphobic. In her early twenties, she published a successful novel, but from there, her career went steadily downhill. Teaching an adjunct university writing class is her salvation, but she doesn't know it yet. She'd much rather stay at home with her basset hound, Alphonse, who doesn't like her much.

Amy's students run the gamut from professional writers to those who are there to meet the opposite sex. Several are extremely talented. The first two student excerpts, one about how to choose the rope you will use to commit suicide, are incredibly good. Amy's suggestions are usually right on the mark, especially when she tells her class not to assume the writer of the suicide poem is writing about her own life. Of course, a writing class doesn't present enough of a conflict to encompass the entire novel, so Willet throws in a stalker; one of the students is making nasty comments on the other writers' hard copies and making harassing phone calls to Amy herself. When one of them dies, we have a full-fledge murder mystery to rival "Ten Little Indians."

Anybody who has been to a writers' conference will recognize what Willett is getting at here. There is a whole industry built to take advantage of beginning writers. Probably the most excruciating scene is one during which an old lady reads her mystery play to the class. It's Amy's job to find something possible to say about student writing, even when there's nothing good to say. The murderer is a bitter person who starts out targeting the editors who have rejected his/her work. When that isn't enough, he/she homes in on Amy's writing class. Amy's most significant observation was, "(He/she) went wrong when he/she started keeping score."

Willett structures her novel by occasionally letting us read the murderer's letters and diary entries, as well as his/her comments on student papers. This lets us participate in trying to find the killer. There's some humor as well, most of it centering on Carla, a student who has taken Amy's class five times.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A fantastic read, genre be damned!, July 2, 2008

By 

K. "otoshigo" (United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Writing Class (Hardcover)

The Writing Class is a book to satisfy the hard-to-please, for it satisfies on so many levels. As a mystery, it is a not-easily-guessed puzzle, all the way to the end. It is funny enough to please the most finicky of humor-lovers. Action sequences are vividly described and grip the reader. Character development is believable, and is not limited to the protagonist, Amy. The book even serves as a source of tips for wanna-be writers. Willett has hit the mark with this one just as surely as she did with Winner of the National Book Award and Jenny and the Jaws of Life.

My request to Ms. Willett would be that she now take Amy by the hand (or by the scruff of the neck, if needed) and lead her into other books, perhaps in other genres altogether: a Fabio-emblazoned romance called Love's Lascivious Extension Prof, an espionage thriller titled Mightier Than the Sword, perhaps some sci-fi - The Universal Point of View, some erotica - Amy Does Alexandria, a bit of distopian fantasy - What Rhymes With Clockwork Orange? If anyone can tackle, successfully and with wit, the genres currently sub-dividing bookstore shelves, it will be Jincy Willett.