[PW] Adult fiction stumper - creepy author book

[Dennis Lien]

This is THE LAND OF LAUGHS, the first novel (1980) by Jonathan Carroll.


Dennis Lien / U of Minnesota Libraries // d-lien at umn.edu


At 06:25 PM 3/13/2008, you wrote:
>I'm looking for a book that I checked out from the library where I
>worked between 2001 and 2003.  It was newish at that time, probably
>published between 1997 and 2003.
>
>The story goes something like this:  A young reporter (or perhaps
>author) and his female friend go to a small town in search of a
>reclusive writer.  The townsfolk are reluctant to talk to them, but
>eventually they contact the writer's daughter, who says her father has
>gone missing.  It comes out that the man had been writing the life
>stories of the people in the town, up to and including their deaths, and
>that everything he'd written had come true.  The townsfolk really liked
>this, and they'd become worried when he disappeared.  If people did bad
>things (like one couple who beat their kids) or deviated from their
>stories, the man would turn them into dogs (bull terriers, I believe).
>The book ended with the young reporter writing the man back into the
>town, and then the townsfolk trying to kill the young man.
>
>That's all I remember.
>
>Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
>Megan Conelly
>Mendive Community Library
>meconelly at washoecounty.us
>
>
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