Bette Pesetsky

May Alto is raising three children in New York City, supporting the family as a ghostwriter. She makes enough that they live comfortably, even though their father, May’s ex, receives not-infrequent handouts (not to mention occasional sex). Her friends keep telling her to get a real job, one that makes her leave the house and work with other people. It is when one of her clients is awarded the Nobel Prize for work she wrote that May seems to begin to come undone; she blackmails him, demanding the entire amount of his prize.

May’s dilemma is an intriguing one; she has done work in a wide variety of fields, while all the recognition goes to others. I found it difficult to be certain how much she had actually written; her reach seems so wide as to be implausible, if only in terms of her output, and I found myself wondering if she was delusional. That impression was enhanced by the surreal, half-hidden quality of the storytelling. I found that quality off-putting, along with the ambiguity of the ending. Still, the questions raised are compelling. Is May’s psychiatrist right to reject books he previously loved once he finds out May actually wrote them—because they are not “authentic”? Considering that many of them are already famous, such that the recognition the work receives is a summation of their pre-existing fame and the work itself, is May being “used”? Or are these deals simply a way to combine May’s skills with the fame of the client?… (mehr)