One hit wonders

[MoodEnhancer]

I’m going through my books today. I have 2 terrible novels by Lionel Shriver, which I bought on the back of We Need to Talk About Kevin - which was brilliant.

It got me thinking - are there other authors where others really loved one book they wrote, but found their other novels dreadful? And what was that author’s one really good book?

Worth adding that I think Lionel Shriver’s other novels are really bad in their own right, not simply because I was expecting better having read something really great. If I had read one or both of them first, I’d never have believed anyone telling me that WNTTAK was good!

Well.. the classic example is To Kill A Mockingbird.

Oh, I misread. I thought from your title you were talking about authors who’d only written a single novel (like Harper Lee or Emily Bronte) or whose other output was entirely in the shadow of that one famous work. But I think what you’re asking is far more subjective, though. Personally, I think Charlotte Bronte’s Villette is a far better novel than her wildly popular Jane Eyre, but I’m probably in a tiny minority.

I agree about Lionel Shriver — but I always think she’s really an essayist/journalist who’s interested in issues, rather than a novelist. WNTTAK was the one work where she was able to marry the two in a way that worked.

The Beach (Alex Garland). 'The Tesseract' was awful. He has had successful films since then but a one hit wonder as far as novels go.

That’s interesting. I’ve never read any of her essays or journalistic output. Is it good?

I absolutely adored each book in the Thursday Murder Club series by Richard Osman.
I have tried ‘We Solve Murders’ a few times and I get so far and give up.
I have read lots of wonderful reviews.
Finding it a bit too whacky, I don’t like any of the characters or care about them.
If anybody has really enjoyed it maybe I am missing something?

I loved The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Can’t get past the first three pages of anything else.

Kazuo Ishiguro. Loved Never Let Me Go. His others have all been just OK or frankly bizarre.

Donna Tartt. 'The Secret History' was wonderful but the others were meh.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Absolutely Fine

Hilary Mantel - technically a three book wonder as the Wolf Hall trilogy is utterly wonderful and sheer genius. Have tried a few of her others and - nope.

Sally Rooney - Normal People . The others were dire. Awful characters, dreadful writing.

Not even Beyond Black?

Try A Place Of Greater Safety

@PeggyMitchellsCameo

We Solve Murders doesn't improve

@TitusMoan, @EineReiseDurchDieZeit Yes, have tried both of those.

I like everything she has written - though I agree Wolf Hall was some of her best writing.

No, that’s not really what I mean — though I’m sure her Guardian columns are available online. I mean, the issues are more important than the characters and the setting for her. She thinks ‘I want to write a novel about a school shooter’ or ‘I want to write a novel about being on the tennis tour as a husband and wife pair’ or ‘I want to write a novel about the US healthcare system’. I think she’s a polemicist, really. (And a bit of an oddball. She was a friend of a friend for a while and I met her a few times and didn’t take to her.)

I think that remains my slight favourite of her novels, despite it being so horrible in many ways. But I do think the Cromwell trilogy is where she harnessed her own capacity for cruelty as a writer in the service of a humanity. A lot of her earlier work is unrelievedly vicious.

I loved the Miniaturist but Jessie Burtons others..... They just awful imo

I've often thought about this, and wonder if it's because immediately after an author having a big hit, prize winning book, they, and their publisher of course, are keen to take advantage of their popularity.

They want to get something out onto the bookshop shelves quickly, so what is easier than revamping a work they wrote earlier that had been previously rejected.
Their readers are disappointed by the second book, sales are low, so by the time the third book comes out the author's popularity has faded, and their first book becomes a one hit wonder.

Not always. Look at Donna Tartt. The Little Friend was a full decade after the wildly successful The Secret History, and The Goldfinch was over a decade after The Little Friend. Neither anywhere near as good.

And an earlier novel having been rejected is no indication of it necessarily being lower-quality. Luck and fashion plays a part.

Sometimes the issue is that the reading public wants The Secret History II, and gets something entirely different. The reading public wanted another Jane Eyre but what they got next was a novel about the Luddite industrial riots and pain.

I can't think of anyone who wrote a single good book and then nothing but rubbish. But most of my favourite writers have written stuff I dislike.

A good example is Aldous Huxley. His debut novel Chrome Yellow is wonderful, and the fact he wrote it in his 20s staggers me. Yet The Genius and the Goddess, which he wrote years later, is unreadable. It's hard to believe it's the same man.

I love George Orwell's non-fiction. I also liked Coming Up for Air. But his novel A Clergyman's Daughter is so bad it takes my breath away.

Wordsworth is another good example. Most critics agree that his early stuff is superb, and some consider him the greatest poet of the 19th-century. But in middle-age he became a reactionary and started churning out utter garbage.

I wouldn't say Martin Amis was a one hit wonder, but after his death the obituaries seemed to agree that he peaked with Money, then failed to live up to the hype. I suppose Amis' father Kingsley was a one hit wonder. Lucky Jim was a hit, but who reads his other stuff?

Trying to think of a few others Emily Bronte maybe? Wuthering Heights was a one off. I suppose Jane Eyre was also a one off.

RF Delderfield. I loved To Serve Them All My Days, so bought all three volumes of A Horseman Riding By. Didn't finish even the first volume. It was just the same story told all over again, but told so much more slowly. Dull, dull, dull.

Less highbrow than others mentioned here, but I remember sitting down on the stairs in my house mid-housework to finish Peter Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing, which is a masterclass in thriller writing. His others have ranged from mediocre to cringingly bad (one in particular was so bad it was almost compelling). I have given up on Swanson now. Of course, it's subjective. Others may love his books!

Completely agree. Have tried to read The Goldfinch but couldn't get into it, but have read Secret History about 10 times