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David's latest book?

posted 9 years ago by gswan
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So David has a new book? What is it about?

I've commented before on how hilarious the re-writing of the character's backstories has been, when the producers gave a new showrunner authority.

In episode 1.1 David, the dad, was a pretty bad guy. He had withheld from his wife and family that his contract with his publishers reuqired him to repay an advance on royalties of half a million dollars. He (and Elizabeth) were making poor Taylor and Grant go through painful and scary family therapy, where the kids were expected to open up, be vulnerable, and tell the truth, all the while withholding his plans to get a divorce.

David had received this huge advance because his publishers expected his book to sell tens of millions of dollars of copies -- but he had writer's block, and had missed his final deadline to submit a manuscript.

David promised Carter he wouldn't write a followup book to his successful first book "Losing Lyndon" entitled "Finding Carter". In fact he did secretly write "Finding Carter". And we saw Carter symbollically throw that manuscript away.

After David starts to get re-written as a good dad, he takes a day job, as a college instructor. I thought that this meant he had given up on being a full time writer.

So, this new book, was he able to rewrite the original manuscript he got stalled on? Did Carter agree to let him publish "Finding Carter", after all?
Is it a brand new book, on some other topic?

I've missed many recent episodes. Has this new book been mentioned before? How did he possibly find the time to write a manuscript, when he was having an affair with his teaching assistant, teaching a full course load, trying to reconcile with his wife from whom he was long estranged, and dealing with the drama of shootings, and other very distracting events?

[–] gswan 9 years ago

I find it hard to imagine that David could have made "Losing Lyndon" a success. Could "Losing Lyndon" have been a big success because David evocatively conveyed the emotional trauma of having a child disappear, without a trace?

So far as the police knew, Elizabeth knew, David never had an affair either before the birth of the twins, or when they were toddlers. So that was one major source of interest that wasn't in his first book. I doubt he explained that Elizabeth used donor eggs to bear them. If he had, then everyone would have known, and it wouldn't have been a surprise to us viewers.

Publishers aren't gamblers. They only make an advance on royalties when they are sure the book's sales will pay down that advance. Bill or Hilary Clinton got $10 million dollar advances. But they were so well known that a publisher could be confident to have that advance paid back, even if the book was terrible. Their contracts likely contain provisions to hire a ghost writer when the famous person's own manuscript was unreadable.

How big an advance does Stephen King get? Substantial. But I can't imagine David's writing talent meriting such a huge advance. I've suggested before, that the producers arbitrarily chose half a million dollars as they needed a hidden debt big enough to trigger a family crisis.

A conversation with Elizabeth implied David had published other successful books, after "Losing Lyndon".