Amy Falls Down

Starred review from May 6, 2013
Willett’s hilarious follow-up to The Writing Class pulls no punches when it comes to current literary trends. Amy Gallup was once heralded as a fresh voice in fiction, but with her novels now long out of print, she’s content with a quiet, anonymous life of leading workshops, keeping lists of great-sounding titles for stories she’ll never write, and maintaining her sporadically updated blog. One afternoon, however, while working in her garden, Amy trips and cold-cocks herself on a birdbath. Still reeling from the head injury hours later, she gives a loopy interview to a reporter working on a series of local author profiles. The result goes viral, and suddenly Amy is a hot commodity on the literary pundit trail. She couldn’t care less about being relevant or famous, which lends a refreshingly brutal honesty to her commentary on the radio, television, and lecture circuit. But her newfound notoriety also pushes Amy out of her comfort zone, forcing her to confront years of neuroses and an unexamined postwriting life. Willett uses her charmingly filterless heroine as a mouthpiece to slam a parade of thinly veiled literati and media personalities with riotous accuracy, but she balances the snark with moments of poignancy.

May 1, 2013
Amy Gallup, 60, hasn't published a book in 20 years, and she's settled into a quiet life with her beloved basset hound, Alphonse. None too excited about a newspaper interview she's agreed to give, she trips, knocking herself out on the birdbath just hours before she's scheduled to play the role of has-been local writer. Oddly, she regains consciousness to see the reporter's car pulling out of her driveway. In the emergency room later, she has the distinct pleasure of reading her own interview--an interview she evidently gave without the assistance of a conscious, rational mind. Amy's cryptic, concussion-addled interview rejuvenates her career. Suddenly, her agent--chain-smoking, aggressive but kindly Maxine--is calling again, arranging appearances and pushing for new material. Her former writing students are back, too. After all, their crazed, knife-wielding former classmate (from Willett's The Writing Class, 2008) is now safely behind bars. The collection of friends and opponents surrounding Amy are flat characters bedazzled with quirks, but that doesn't quite make them quirky. Grudgingly, Amy goes on tour, battling wits with shrill, book-phobic radio hosts, twitter-bewitched moderators, new authors drunk on blogs and old authors drunk on scotch. Along the way, she confronts the demons of her past, including her buried grief for her late, gay husband, as well as her ambivalence about success. The skewering of the business of selling books--despite some hilarious scenes and Amy's dry humor--gets repetitive as Amy tirelessly defends real writing and debunks virtual book launches. Amy is endearing, yet it is difficult to remain curious about a heroine whose only interest is writing. Willett's skill in crafting zany scenes and Amy's acerbic wit are not enough to keep this novel afloat.

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July 1, 2013
In this sequel to the events that ended Willett's The Writing Class (2008), erstwhile novelist turned online writing instructor Amy Gallup stumbles in her backyard just minutes before being interviewed for a where-are-the-has-beens-of-yesteryear article. It can only be assumed that her skull's brief contact with a concrete birdbath is what transformed Amy from an irascible wag to an insouciant wit. Whatever the cause, suddenly Amy is hot again. After the article goes viral, her former agent resurfaces, booking her on NPR and scoring profiles in mainstream media, and she's the A-list guest for literary panels discussing such egregious topics as Whither Publishing? Best yet, Amy's creative muse also reappears, and short stories spew forth as if out of the ether. It's a heady ride for the one-time recluse, showing her that, hey, maybe success isn't so bad after all. For anyone who has ever wondered what it's like to be an author, Willett's thinly veiled heroine provides a saucily irreverent look at the writing life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

February 15, 2013

Since Willett's fey, popular novels include a winner of the National Book Award, it is perhaps no surprise that the protagonist of her latest book is a writer. Withdrawn, cranky Amy Gallup hasn't written much lately, but when she clonks her head on a birdbath after tripping in her own backyard, then follows through with a scheduled interview that ends up portraying her wandering thoughts as sheer genius, Amy is suddenly a media hit. And she starts to write. With a reading group guide and lots of publicity.

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