Melanie Sumner

How to Write a Novel Melanie Sumner

How to Write a Novel is a portrait of a stressed-out modern family, narrated by precocious twelve-year-old Aris Thibodeau as she writes her first novel. A brilliantly funny work of metafiction, Aris is Adrian Mole if he were living with his frazzled single mother in Kanuga, Georgia. With the same wry humor as Sue Townsends bestselling series, Aris attempts to find her mother, Diane, a suitable mate. Aris dad, a sax-blowing rogue from Louisiana, died when Aris was just a baby but still resides as a ghost in the house, blowing fuses and sabotaging Dianes dates. Penn, a socialist/atheist/not-quite-redneck nanny, serves as a positive male influence for Max, Aris emotionally frenetic eight-year-old brother. Aris thinks she could use some time with the family therapist, but money is tight, so Diane gives her a book, Write a Novel in Thirty Days!, in the hope that Aris will work through her own issues on her laptop. Aris begins her book with a broken pipe in the bathroom, a flood that unearths Dianes stash of journals. While reading the journals, Aris discovers a terrible secret regarding her dead fathers childhood, and their frenzied suburban life begins to break down: Diane loses her job, Max melts down when he learns building Legos isnt a viable talent for the talent show, and Aris mails her mothers journals out to strangers on eBay and stalks the neighborhoods child molesters with a machete. But as Aris machinations to set Diane up with Penn begin to bear fruit, Aris wonders if a “normal†family isnt what shed needed after all. Captured through the lens of a snarky, perceptive adolescent playing at adulthood, How to Write a Novel is a brilliant satire of the modern family, at once endearing, hilarious, and bittersweet—a distillation of the sorts of witty, insightful quips that keep you from drowning your kid in the bathtub.