Author:
Amber Gwynne
(MENAFN- The Conversation) Stranger Things actor
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Millie Bobby Brown's debut novel
, Nineteen Steps , revolves loosely around true events. In 1943, the Bethnal Green tube disaster claimed the lives of 173 Londoners, due to faulty stairs in the station used as an air raid shelter.
This tragedy, the UK's largest loss of civilian life in the second world war, was one Brown's own grandmother survived. Brown describes her novel
as a“really special project” inspired by her family's WWII history.
But she didn't write Nineteen Steps. A ghostwriter named Kathleen McGurl did. McGurl described the process in a blog post :
There's been vocal backlash against the book
– partly due to Brown's outsourcing, but also for its quality. The novel
's first paragraph, which has been shared widely (and derisively) on social media
, ends with the line:
I read Millie Bobby Brown's book
so you don't have to. Social media
users have further lambasted the dubious origins and quality of Nineteen Steps by posting screenshots from classic novel
s, cheekily attributing the opening lines to Brown.
Read more: Ghostwriters haunt our illusions about solitary authors
Credit where credit's due?
Ghostwritten novel
s have long haunted debates surrounding issues of authorship and authenticity in publishing.
It's a phenomenon we seem to tolerate in some genres, usually when the real author's ghostly presence is an open secret (even subtly acknowledged), or when authorship takes a backseat to story. It's more common in mass-market than literary fiction.
For example, anyone who's devoured a Hardy Boys novel
or an instalment of The Baby-Sitters Club owes hours of enjoyment to the invisible authors behind household names Franklin W. Dixon and Ann M. Martin. These serialised book
s for young readers revolve around familiar characters and the comforting rhythms of formulaic story arcs.
Blockbuster writer James Patterson co-authors his novel
s, coming up with outlines and working with collaborators to conceive, co-write and curate them.
We also know ghostwriters regularly work with celebrities when they publish memoirs and autobiographies. Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In (2013) was co-authored by TV and magazine writer Nell Scovell, best known for creating the hit series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Prince Harry's controversial Spare was famously penned by acclaimed ghostwriter J. R. Moehringer.
Read more: Paparazzi, 'blooding' and a body count: hunting and being hunted dominate Prince Harry's royally discontented memoir
What makes a celebrity novel
, such as Brown's, different?
One obvious answer is that this type of ghostwriting feels inherently more murky and disingenuous.
When working with a public figure or celebrity to tell their life story, the writer's purpose is to help them excavate their circumstances, memories and perspectives – and to then shape them into a readable book
. Their task doesn't necessarily include representing the celebrity“author” or collaborator as a competent, imaginative writer.
A novel
, on the other hand, implies a distinct relationship between author and text that a ghostwriter more clearly undermines. The point of writing a novel
is typically to write a novel
.
If Hemingway was right, and all it takes is to“sit at the typewriter and bleed”, we have good reason to worry about who gets the credit for bleeding a fictional story into being. When somebody puts their name to a novel
, they're staking a claim to an act of skill, imagination and perseverance that even the world's most successful writers admit is tough.
But our discomfort runs deeper than the concealment of identity and therefore labour. Our discomfort lies more with how a bestselling celebrity novel
reconfigures the book
as merchandise.
As Noongar Australian author Claire G. Coleman recently tweeted about Brown's Nineteen Steps:“This book
will outsell book
s by real authors because her name is on it.”
Read more: Ghostwriters haunt our illusions about solitary authors
Ghost in the machine
Pointing the finger at capitalism seems almost too easy. But ready-made audiences are seductive to publishers, who do business in a notoriously competitive domain. Ghostwritten celebrity novel
s may not always be a critical success, but they often succeed commercially – at least for a while.
You may remember that British YouTuber Zoe Sugg (better known as Zoella) broke records back in 2014 when her debut novel
sold almost 80,000 copies in its first week on shelves. Shortly afterwards, the book
made headlines again when it came to light that a prolific children's author had written it.
The fallout was im media
te and intense. But Sugg went on to publish several more novel
s, this time bearing the names of her co-authors on the covers. She also sells homewares, apps and even a monthly“sexual wellness subscription box” through her website .
Celebrity authors – some using ghostwriters (and some crediting them), others writing their own book
s – have long been a trend in children's publishing, from Madonna and model Cara Delvigne to Matthew McConaughey .
Critics say widespread ghostwriting in book
s for kids undermines quality and means there's less money available to sign other authors.
Celebrity authors have long been a trend in children's publishing – including Madonna. Frank Franklin II/AP And let's not forget Millie Bobby Brown has starred in one of Netflix's most popular offerings to date. She's amassed close to 64 million followers on Instagram . That's an awful lot of admiring fans who might drop $32.99 on a paperback, much as they might buy any other celebrity merch.
We may expect more from fiction. But celebrity novel
s remind us book
s always occupy an uneasy position as both artistic creation and commodity. This is why many of us who care about reading and writing will find we can't agree with the ghostwriting firms that insist book
s are“just products”.
Writing, as I often remind my students, is primarily a process. It is the means, not the end.
As celebrity authors remain a fixture of contemporary publishing, and AI platforms such as ChatGPT complicate the nature of creative practice even further, the war of words around Nineteen Steps is another opportunity to think about why we read book
s – and what we want from them.
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