GHOSTWRITER

Wells dives into a centuries-old mystery on behalf of an eccentric employer in this literary memoir.

In Mississippi in 1987, unemployed novelist Wells received a fascinating job offer. It came to him via his alma mater, Ole Miss, on behalf of one of the school’s more colorful donors. The client was “Mrs. F,” a reclusive 70-something widow from a prominent Southern family who lived with her dogs in an unassuming ranch house in Jackson. Mrs. F was of the firm belief that the plays of William Shakespeare were actually authored by Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. She “knew” this because she believed herself to be the reincarnation of de Vere’s lover, Queen Elizabeth I. (One of the things she liked about Wells—the fourth writer to take on her project—was that she thought he looked a bit like de Vere.) The job was this: Wells was to research and ghostwrite a novel dramatizing Mrs. F’s theories about the authorship of Shakespeare’s plays. In exchange, she would donate a hefty sum toward Old Miss’ new theater complex and pay Wells $60,000 (plus $10,000 for expenses). Wells thought the proposal was nuts, but he was between jobs, and who was he to turn down a free trip to England? With his wife, Dean, in tow, Wells set out to tell a story that he himself did not believe…and soon discovered a different, stranger one that he couldn’t help but get swept up in. Wells is a skilled storyteller, and his ability to capture the uncanny, metafictional nature of ghostwriting is by turns profound and comic: “To think like Mrs. F is to don an imaginary kimono. Since she’s not here, as ghostwriter it’s my duty to represent her. I’ve learned to imitate her style of composition, to write in jerks and starts, reacting to someone else’s ideas. The next logical step is to anticipate her thoughts.” His quixotic quest concerns literary history but also family histories, as well as the stories people tell themselves to contextualize their confusing place in the world.

A rich and amusing literary memoir with a conspiratorial twist.