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Title: reading and writhing
Review: A good book. To be more precise, it's a well-crafted novel that's squirmily uncomfortable to read. The situation is not particularly new; it's even been the basis for a couple of recent movies: a writing professor who was hired because of one sucessful novel and has been blocked ever since. What she does with the familiar material, though, is sharp and original -- and far too perceptive to be a fun read for a writing professor! Her self-deluding anti-hero is bombastic and manipulative and careless, in both senses of the word, and I can see myself doing a tamer version of almost every self-destructive gaffe he commits on his way to academic self-immolation.
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