So in the news on CNN's website yesterday was a story about Dolly Parton writing her own novel - which is fake news in my opinion, since she's working with James Patterson. To me, this means he's the one actually doing the writing, and presumably picking Dolly's brains as he goes. Of course he's going to get more sales if the fiction is that Dolly is writing it.
I don't know for sure: that's just a guess. Who knows, maybe she's teaching him a thing or two about writing. The novel is about a young woman who moves to Nashville to follow her dream of becoming a musician, so there's nothing original there at all. It's not even a stretch! There's some hint about her dark past following her, but again, nothing new there either. This plot has been done to death already.
The real fiction here is that the article claims that Patterson, who I don't like as an author, is America's number one bestselling author. What they're basing that on isn't revealed, but every news outlet is parroting it. Investigative journalism is dead, because that honor surely goes to someone like Danielle Steel or Harold Robbins in terms of total book sales? Patterson comes way down the list below them. I guess it's possible they're talking recent sales, in which case Patterson may be higher up the list, but it's still dishonest, because then you have to figure in people like Dean Koontz and Stephen King who are still currently writing and selling novels and have higher sales than Patterson, so whence the 'number one bestselling'? It sounds like numnber two to me.
Doubtlessly this novel will be a bestseller because of the big names involved, but I sure have no intention of ever reading it. It's another unoriginal and unimaginative yawner.
