This book is nothing. I know that’s a bold claim, but I’ve racked my brain since finishing The Ending Writes Itself, the new book by Evelyn Clarke, a pen name for the collaborative work of V.E. Schwab and Cat Clarke, and I can’t come up with anything that accurately categorizes it.
The publishers call it a mystery novel, and on the surface it’s easy to see why. It’s about a dead mystery writer, after all, though his death is not mysterious at all. He’s drowned while swimming off the coast of his remote Scottish island, inconveniently while in the middle of writing the final novel of his mega-bestselling series. So his publishers concoct a scheme implausible even by the standards of contemporary fiction. They invite a septet of authors to a weekend retreat at Arthur’s castle, and announce a contest between them to see who can come up with the perfect ending to the plot. The winner will receive a million dollars for ghostwriting the ending, plus another million-dollar book deal for their own future work.
As if that premise weren’t absurd enough, for some reason the invited authors span the most popular genres of fiction today. There’s thriller writers Malcolm and Sienna, a married couple on the rocks thanks to seething resentments and declining sales; Kenzo, a horror writer who’s surprisingly normal in person; Millie, a YA novelist/influencer who dreads being away from her phone; sci-fi/fantasy writer Jaxon, a gym bro meathead; romance writer Priscilla, eerily poised in her pink eyeglasses and tasteful sweaters; and newcomer Cate, a fresh discovery by Arthur’s legendary agent, who is unsure she belongs with the other writers.
None of this makes any sense of course. Because The Ending Writes Itself isn’t a mystery at all (though there are eventually some more dead bodies to deal with, there are no clues for the reader to follow or play along with.) The plot isn’t thrilling enough to be called a thriller either, and the characters aren’t interesting or developed enough for this to count as any kind of literary fiction. No, this is an attempt at lampooning the publishing industry, but the fact is that the bards are so toothless that it can’t quite wear the label of satire.
Characters speak in truism after truism about publishing. How it’s an old boys club, how agents don’t return calls, how companies are only interested in producing more of what sells, and not finding new things that might be just as good. And more platitudes about how hard writing is, etc etc etc. Frankly the only people I could even conceive of enjoying this novel are midlist authors such as the ones staying on the island. This whole book is designed to flatter their egos by making obvious references for them to nod along at knowingly.
This is a frustrating book in many ways, but chiefly because it is so low effort. There’s no effort to characterize Arthur Fletch, or give the reader a taste of what his books were like. There’s no effort to portray how each of the writers contesting for the prize might approach finishing the story. (They tend to get knocked off just as they come up with a great, unshared idea.) There’s no effort to build any suspense or mystery in the killings on the island so as to allow the reader to play detective themselves. Everything about The Ending Writes Itself screams that it was written on a lark by two authors out to gently rib some of their compatriots without actually ruffling any feathers. The result is something best left on the shelf.
