THE STORYTELLER

Reid, we’re told, is actually a “longtime New York publishing executive” who “spent a career” in the business. Whatever. His story about an opportunistic writer is a mediocrity and rather repellent.

Steven King—pen name Konigsberg, his family’s original surname—is having trouble getting his books published, even though he did go to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and does have his own cousin Stuart for a shark-like agent. Making ends meet by bartending in Maine, however, 30ish Steven gets lucky when he’s befriended by the older and affable Ben Chambers, a wise and kindly gent who’s been everywhere, done everything—and written 20 novels, all unpublished (“I only wrote for myself,” says he) and all, presumably, about likable heroes (“If a reader doesn’t like the central character of a book, you got problems,” he tells eager novice Steven). As luck would have it—though of course it’s very sad, he was so kind and so nice—Ben soon dies (manfully and quietly, of course) of heart trouble and leaves everything he had to his new friend and wannabe writer Steven. How long does it take him, agented by the cartoonishly crass Stuart, to get rich and famous by publishing the first of Ben’s 20 novels—under the name Konigsberg? Well, let’s just say that Steven is rocketed right up there among the high-rolling gods of bestsellerdom, and, hey, he’s still got 19 more hits to go! Even when a few worms who knew the real Ben Chambers crawl out of the woodwork to blackmail Steven, things work out. One of the worms gets shot dead, Steven is implicated—but a cop who loves Steven’s books and knows he’s innocent buries the evidence, becoming afterward a writing student under the master. When his wife discovers what he’s been doing all along, Steven turns over a major new leaf: he doesn’t publish any more of the books, sets up a good-deeds foundation instead.

Clumsy, mechanical, inane: a kind of YA for adults, sophomoric and repugnant at once.