Skills to Pay the Bills With Thrills and Chills

Sure, Tom Perrotta may be a bigshot author now, with every new book virtually guaranteed to receive major attention from the NY Times before it gets made into a movie, but as Entertainment Weekly blogger Missy Schwartz found out last last week, back when Election was barely more than a glimmer in his eye, he took a gig ghostwriting a R.L. Stine novel. Although he may not have been able to hide every trace of his Perrotta-ness. “I am a big fan of RL Stine and his Fear Street series,” says one Amazon.com customer, “but this book was way too out there even for this well known horror author.” Most customers who bothered to write anything about the book, though, share the views of one who calls it “one of the best Fear Street books I’ve ever read.”