At this point, I’ve no doubt that the already overhyped proposal Ali Gunn‘s been peddling around the LBF halls will find a home on both sides of the Atlantic, but to call it, as PW Daily does, “the talk of the fair” seems to fit in with the overhype. But don’t take my word for it, see what the publishing insider Gawker‘s Emily Gould recruited to give his or her opinion on the proposal opined: “Everyone is having great fun trying to pick out who the characters are modeled after and who the writer is. Beyond that, there is absolutely nothing to care about except to wonder idly how an internationally bestselling writer and a well-known agent could have put together such a resoundingly flagrant piece of utter crap without realizing (or maybe just without caring) how crappy it actually is. Also, the sex scenes are really really terrible.”
PW Daily’s piece pretty much rehashes PN’s story from Monday but adds the extra tidbit that many people at LBF figure that Gunn is the agent in question co-authoring EGO and GREED along with the American male author already mentioned. If that’s the case, looking at Gunn’s client list, the only “internationally published American male writer” who might fit the criteria is Brian Freeman (right), a Minnesota-based crime writer whose debut novel IMMORAL (2005) was nominated for the Edgar Award. That and his two follow-ups, STRIPPED AND STALKED, are published by St. Martin’s Press in the US and Headline in the UK. The catch, and it’s a big enough one to sway me against this particular guess is that Freeman is “published in 46 countries and 16 languages” according to his website, and PN’s story claims the author is “published in 17 countries” but they could be mixing things up intentionally to avoid accurate guesses and Gunn having to buy the winner dinner…