The Plagiarists - Synopsis

The novel, in short:


Jake Gilvray has been described as the Danielle Steel of science fiction: prolific and a bit of a guilty pleasure. He’s proud, caustic and competitive. He’s also a widower with a son in college, and until this week was hard at work finishing up his first literary novel (for which he has already spent a large advance). That book has gone missing, hard drive and pages, along with his new house, in a Los Angeles mudslide that opens the novel.

Under pressure from agent and editors to deliver his manuscript within the month, Jake returns to Northern California to the house his ex-wife passed on to their son. The ex-wife, Kate Boyd, was a National Book Award-winning fantasy writer / magical realist who died of ovarian cancer three years ago. Jake and Kate had a late reconciliation. Their son, Finn, is just about to finish school. Neither father nor son has dealt particularly well with Kate’s death.

The plot emerges from Jake’s decision to edit and then publish Kate’s final manuscript as his own book rather than rewrite his own almost from scratch. Once that choice is made, a curious thing happens: Jake’s own missing book, Viral Messiah, starts to appear online, chapter by chapter, as the final manuscript of KK Boyd. And it’s a huge hit.

In the book, I’m exploring problems of authorship and ownership in the age of blogs, mashups and fan fiction. But I’m also working through the stories we tell ourselves – as husbands and wives and sons – the more we try to assert control over the slippery world around us.

- Ryan Sloan

Published Work and Readings

Published Work: Stories, Essays & Interviews

• "The Opposite of Animal" reprinted in Nerve's Smut Vol 2, available in paperback at bookstores and Amazon.com.
  

• "The Bitches of Banner Elk" in Mr. Beller's Neighborhood

• "Floating Zoe Rosen" in The Rambler

• "The Opposite of Animal" in Nerve Magazine

• "March Madness: Pleasures of the Crowd" in The Modern Spectator

• "On Speed Dating and the Supersecret Spy" in Opium Magazine
• "Things To Do When Your Best-Selling Non-Fiction Account of Addiction and Redemption is Revealed to Be an Embellished, Garden-Variety Crack and Whiskey Habit" in Opium Magazine
  

• "Full Fathom" in Locus Novus

• "Demonstrating His Love, Oz Battles the Infants" in Poor Mojo's Almanack

• "M and the Artful Lie" in Painted Bride Quarterly, Issue 71 / Print Annual 2

• "Loyalty: The Guest Driver" in LA Weekly's 'A Considerable Town' series (scroll down to the third piece)

• "Anja" in Mash Magazine
• A great pseudo-literary chat with Aimee Bender called "The Virtues of Leather Pants and the Big Sloppy Mess"
• A flippant review of The Master and Margarita

Readings: Past & Present

Debut Lit Series - Flash Fiction @ KGB Bar, 5.06.06

Opium Magazine @ Happy Ending, 2.26.06

MFA Graduate Student Reading @ Fales Library, 4.28.05

NYU MFA @ Bowery Poetry Club, 10.11.04

NYU Emerging Writers Reading Series @ Bowery Poetry Club, 2.1.04