‘BOOKS ARE REALLY INTIMATE OBJECTS - THEY SMELL A CERTAIN THERE'S A CERTAIN HEAVINESS'
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Forget the difficult second album syndrome. How do authors follow up that auspicious, notorious, glorious debut novel? Either slowly, weirdly or not at all.
Alex Garland After sterming the backpacker set with The Beach, this enfant terrible went into hiding to escape the inevitable media flurry. From his hideaway. he gave us the multi-layered Philippino thriller The Teeseract to remain the talk of the literary town. But the strain of that second book was so vast that a sustained period of writer's block ensued. Then he gave us The Coma. Oh. well. Donna Tartt After the sensational 1992 debut The Secret H/SlOf),”. the chain-smoking southern p:xre's life was aWEiSh With rumOur and conjecture until she finally gave us her second novel. The Little Friend. ten years later. The strain of gossip ranged from her having a nervOLis breakdown to taking time Out to buy her very own tropical island. Harper Lee In 1960 she had the world at her feet. To K/ll/ 8 Mockingbird was an immediate bestseller. won the Pulitzer Prize and became a hit movie. Two years later, Lee ihSisted that she was hard at it on the foi:o\.'.'-up Now. aged 78. still nada. nowt. zilch. The architect of her own destiny or plain bone idle? ‘ Ralph Elllson At least the author of 1952s influential African- American drama Invrsib/e Man has the excuse of being dead for not finishing his second book. But it took him 40 years of hard torl over his ‘Symphonic novel‘ before keeling over. his 200:)- page manuscript still Sitting in the to-be-completed pile. The exeCutor of his estate then knocked out an edited version of the totally underwhelihu‘ig Juneteenth.