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Original poster

One hit wonders

44 replies

MoodEnhancer · 19/10/2024 11:49

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!

OP posts:
Original poster
MoodEnhancer · 23/10/2024 19:28

Interesting how many only liked The Secret History. I read the Little Friend first and loved it, so don’t think of Donna Tartt as a one hit wonder.

OP posts:
Hellohah · 24/10/2024 21:43

ChessieFL · 20/10/2024 17:46

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

I loved The Remains of the Day. I've read everything else he's written and been mightily unimpressed. Hated Never Let Me Go.

LLresident · 24/10/2024 21:50

I read conversations with friends and hated it so didn’t bother with any others.

Bullaun · 24/10/2024 21:50

Dappy777 · 22/10/2024 17:44

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.

Except Villette is a far greater, though far odder and more problematic, novel than Jane Eyre (there’s a reason it never gets adapted for screen)…

SomewhereInMyHeart · 24/10/2024 21:56

DesiccatedCoconut · 23/10/2024 08:46

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!

I agree! Except I also liked Rules for Perfect Murders.

The others were bad I bought his Christmas one last year and it was terrible!

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 24/10/2024 21:59

ChessieFL · 20/10/2024 17:46

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

Nooooooo - Remains of the Day is one of the best novels ever written.

tobee · 25/10/2024 02:30

Third agree about Peter Swanson and The Kind Worth Killing. I listened to it on audible and then some others and they were pretty much the same again or derivative.

Raveonette · 25/10/2024 04:17

I really enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but her Forever, Interrupted felt like it was written for teenage girls.

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 25/10/2024 11:30

Raveonette · 25/10/2024 04:17

I really enjoyed The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, but her Forever, Interrupted felt like it was written for teenage girls.

I think Forever, Interrupted might be one of her early ones, the ones all set in the same universe :

Daisy Jones, Evelyn Hugo, Carrie Soto and Malibu Rising

are all good.

Raveonette · 25/10/2024 22:31

EineReiseDurchDieZeit · 25/10/2024 11:30

I think Forever, Interrupted might be one of her early ones, the ones all set in the same universe :

Daisy Jones, Evelyn Hugo, Carrie Soto and Malibu Rising

are all good.

Show quote history

Yes I haven't read any others to be fair, I know Daisy Jones received good reviews. I may give her another chance.

ReadLotsAndSmile · 26/10/2024 17:10

So subjective though isn't it, as I was surprised to read the comments above about Donna Tartt. I read The Secret History and thought it was great, then read the Goldfinch years after and thought it was a masterpiece and her best book!

PurpleChrayn · 26/10/2024 23:30

Definitely Lionel Shriver.

I met her at a literary festival about 10 years ago and she was very unpleasant.

Compash · 27/10/2024 02:35

Bullaun · 22/10/2024 11:04

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.

Show quote history

I think you and @AdaColeman are both right - I work in a field where we sometimes see a success and are keen to get hold of their second, and it's clear that's what's happened - the publisher wanted another one quickly, so they've pulled their wonky first book from the drawer - you can see where they learnt from it and made the second one better.

But sometimes it is indeed that the public wanted more of the same. And then sometimes, writers have one 'magic' novel in them, where their interests and their ability align perfectly.

But publishing has changed, and writers don't get to develop their craft over a long career as much as they did in the past - two strikes and you're often out.

ShrubRose · 30/11/2024 22:49

PeggyMitchellsCameo · 20/10/2024 16:01

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?

Edited

Same here - loved the Thursday Murder Club series and read great reviews of We Solve Murders.
I've just given up. Couldn't stand it.

Cmq · 01/12/2024 00:30

I couldn’t get on with the 2nd Thursday Murder so ill avoid his new one!

I remember watching an interview with Lionel Shriver years ago and it felt like Kevin was her justification for not wanting/having children. Still a truly remarkable book though. I would not say I ‘loved’ it as was harrowing and I’ve no desire to read again but definitely one of those books that stays with you.

AprilShowerslastforHours · 01/12/2024 09:18

I am Pilgrim - Terry Hayes. One of the best thrillers I've read. Waited years for the Year of the Locust to appear. Utter garbage.

bellocchild · 01/12/2024 09:25

To Kill a Mockingbird was a masterpiece. Go Set a Watchman almost spoiled it - Atticus in old age was not so admirable.

FlorbelaEspanca · 19/03/2025 22:04

M E Atkinson. Is she remembered nowadays? I read Smuggler's Gap (bought second hand) about 1970. I loved it and still do, although I can see that it has dated. But others of hers I have read since - August Adventure, Problem Party, The Monster of Widgeon Weir - are clunky, and show a snobbery not evident in Smuggler's Gap.

PermanentTemporary · 19/03/2025 22:14

I disagree with a lot of these! Like @ReadLotsAndSmile I loved the Goldfinch, having thought that the Secret History was well-marketed but forgettable. WNTTAK was likewise incredibly well marketed and it had something, but it struck me as the kind of dark fantasy you have when you're pregnant, not any kind of 'issue' novel. I thought the tennis one was really interesting if unpleasant, but am not going to read any others because I don't enjoy her worldview. I agree she's a polemicist but one who makes her own worlds to her satisfaction rather than engaging with reality. Hilary Mantel I have enjoyed lots of and agree that Beyond Black is a masterpiece. And as for Martin Amis, I thought Times Arrow, Experience and The Zone of Interest were all absolutely incredible, though I have already made someone's life worse by encouraging them to read the latter - I certainly have no desire to see the film.

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