Short Story Review: 'My Purple-Scented Novel' by Ian McEwan

Is it odd to write a review for just one single short story? Perhaps, or at least it feels a bit odd to me. Why does this story "deserve" to be published on its own? Is it truly a "jewel of a short story" or is it just an interesting story from one of Britain's most famous contemporary authors? Let's unravel that together. Thanks to Knopf Doubleday and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Pub Date: 6/19/2018
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday

A jewel of a short story from the bestselling, award-winning author of Atonement—“My Purple Scented Novel” follows the perfect crime of literary betrayal, scrupulously wrought yet unscrupulously executed. Published to celebrate Ian McEwan’s 70th birthday.
 
“You will have heard of my friend the once celebrated novelist Jocelyn Tarbet, but I suspect his memory is beginning to fade. . . . You’d never heard of me, the once obscure novelist Parker Sparrow, until my name was publicly connected with his. To a knowing few, our names remain rigidly attached, like the two ends of a seesaw. His rise coincided with, though did not cause, my decline. . . . I don’t deny there was wrongdoing. I stole a life, and I don’t intend to give it back. You may treat these few pages as a confession.”

At its core, which is admittedly right at the surface since My Purple-Scented Novel rings in at just over 30 pages apparently, this story is one of a literary heist. And I really can't say more than that since otherwise I'm basically retelling you the story. I think everyone who enjoys books also enjoys literary drama to a certain extent. Authors are fascinating people to us, capable of stupendous acts of creation, but the pedestal on which we place them is a very unstable one. Tracking the way their careers unfold, the way some emerge as heroes from chaos and the way others see their reputation slowly unravel, largely due to their own actions, is something of a hobby to most of Book Twitter. So that this story, My Purple-Scented Novel, is interesting because it plays with all of that is no surprise, really. But I also wouldn't say it qualifies to be called a "jewel"

What else can I say about this story? The writing is confident and smooth as always and the way the characters interact brings together the right combination of wry comedy and tragedy. But in and of itself this is not a story that majorly excites me. So perhaps I went into My Purple-Scented Novel with too many expectations, with too high a hope that this story was indeed so brilliant that it made sense to publish it separately. I have read short stories before that knocked the socks off me, that really made me sit back and reconsider something about myself or about the world. This is not that. It is fun, it is exciting, it has the right amount of drama to propel you through the pages. But is it life-altering? Or worth the hype I built up for it? For me, no. For others, it may be exactly what they're looking for. I'd recommend looking it up in the New Yorker, however, if you want to see if it is the thing for you.

I give this story...

3 Universes!

The story is pleasant, the plot is interesting, My Purple-Scented Novel ticks all the boxes. But I was perhaps too expectant for it to be something truly special, which means I was left merely whelmed.