Review: The Girl on the Page

Title:  The Girl on the Page

Author: John Purcell

Publisher: 24th September 2018 by HarperCollins Australia

Pages: 352 pages
How I Read It: ARC book
Genre: contemporary

My Rating: 3 cups

Synopsis:

Two women, two great betrayals, one path to redemption. A punchy, powerful and page-turning novel about the redemptive power of great literature, from industry insider, John Purcell.

Amy Winston is a hard-drinking, bed-hopping, hot-shot young book editor on a downward spiral. Having made her name and fortune by turning an average thriller writer into a Lee Child, Amy is given the unenviable task of steering literary great Helen Owen back to publication.

When Amy knocks on the door of their beautiful townhouse in north-west London, Helen and her husband, the novelist Malcolm Taylor, are conducting a silent war of attrition. The townhouse was paid for with the enormous seven-figure advance Helen was given for the novel she wrote to end fifty years of making ends meet on critical acclaim alone. The novel Malcolm thinks unworthy of her. The novel Helen has yet to deliver. The novel Amy has come to collect.

Amy has never faced a challenge like this one. Helen and Malcolm are brilliant, complicated writers who unsettle Amy into asking questions of herself - questions about what she values, her principles, whether she has integrity, whether she is authentic. Before she knows it, answering these questions becomes a matter of life or death.

From ultimate book industry insider, John Purcell, comes a literary page-turner, a ferocious and fast-paced novel that cuts to the core of what it means to balance ambition and integrity, and the redemptive power of great literature.

My Thoughts

This is a really hard book to review - I am so torn. Some parts were .... well, no words really ... that bad. Then other parts were just brilliant. Presented as a window into the world of publishing (a world I would not want to enter by the way, if this is anything to go by) I think this book suffers a real sense of a lack of identity.

I will confess that I did not fully appreciate this book as it attempted to tick too many boxes for me, in too short a space. In one chapter there might be drama filled angst, another in your face erotica, skip to the next chapter that was filled with horrific sadness, then blend in another on a strong literary stance regarding literature in today’s modern world. Is it any wonder I was confused as it really was quite disconcerting.

It’s rather sad as this book held much potential but got lost in too many threads. Many a reader would appreciate some sort of indication, for example, for the sections that can really only be described as soft porn. Maybe it could have better focused more on character analysis but that was lost in trashy encounters that really did not contribute a great deal to the overall plot. A stronger focus on the characters of Helen and Malcolm, representative of this clash of what constitutes good literature, would have been amazing. For herein lay its strength.

‘What good is fiction if it doesn’t allow you to practise at living life?’

The epilogue was incredible! Here, finally, at last I could see what lay at the root for the motivation for this book (for me). Indeed what is literature and how do we know if it’s any good? Is it pure and meaningful or is it there to sell books? Many a book and author comes into the spotlight (‘Poisonwood Bible, Atonement and The Life of Pi. They sell millions of copies and get mistaken for literature.’) as lying just beneath the surface is a truly insightful proclamation on what makes a good read!

‘There’s uphill reading and downhill reading. As you can imagine, uphill reading requires more effort. Downhill, less so. Readers will do both in their reading lives.’

The Girl on the Page will certainly take you on an undulating ride, with you never knowing what the next page will bring - sex and scandal! Sadness and shock! Release and redemption! This is a book that is multi faceted in every way and so very complex, but at its core lies a brilliantly eloquent portrayal of great literature versus commercial page turners. I will leave the verdict up to you.

“Great writing is rare. With so little time on this planet, shouldn’t we spend at least some of that time getting acquainted with the writers most often acknowledged as exceptional?”

This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher and provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release