Ghostwriting, Part I: The Ballad of Michael Gruber

It's funny how some stories have a cyclical effect--there's an immediate reaction when it first becomes known, but then people who either were focusing their attention elsewhere or simply missed it the first time around become aware and react in their own manner. That seems to be the case with Michael Gruber, whose bio entry at Bouchercon attracted some attention for admitting that he's long been the ghostwriter for Robert Tanenbaum, the trial lawyer turned NY Times Bestselling writer.

Lee Goldberg, upon finding out, expressed serious surprise:

I've seen Robert Tannenbaum at signings. I wasn't aware that he had such a large following that he needed a ghostwriter to churn out his books. I mean, is he really in the same league as Clive Cussler? Tom Clancy? James Patterson? At least those titans credit their co-authors.

Though as the backblog comments show, the story's fairly complicated and a long way from being totally resolved and out of the open.

Tanenbaum's illustrious career included serving as the Deputy Counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations in the late 1970s, looking into matters like the death of President Kennedy, and before that, working in the DA's office in New York where he was known for never losing a murder case. He then switched to writing books with 1979's BADGE OF THE ASSASSIN,detailing a 1971 case in Harlem involving the death of two cops, and THE PIANO TEACHER (1987), about a gifted but psychotic pianist who killed two women before hanging himself in jail in 1982. What's interesting about these two early works is that co-writers are credited; for BADGE, it's Philip Rosenberg, a Hollywood screenwriter (and author of 2003's HOUSE OF LORDS.) For PIANO TEACHER, it's Steve Greenberg, a syndicated columnist and TV producer. So even in a non-fiction setting, Tanenbaum needed help, and knew (or likely, his publishers knew) where to get it. Of course, the writers are co-credited on the 2001 mass market reissues; I've never seen first editions of these books so have no idea if Tanenbaum was listed as sole author originally.

But after two cracks at non-fiction, Tanenbaum decided to try his hand at writing a novel. According to the story recounted at the blog Nobody Knows Anything, Tanenbaum sent the manuscript to his first cousin, one Michael Gruber, and he got a very interesting answer back:

Tanenbaum's a relative of his and had a nonfiction bestseller (about one of his cases??) c. 20 years ago. Decided to get into legal thrillers, wrote a book, asked Gruber to critique it for him. Gruber said it was so bad that for half the money he'd write a whole new one for Tanenbaum. And so it went from there. Evidently the once close relationship became mightily strained by this arrangement.

So for sixteen years, Gruber served as his cousin's ghostwriter, making good money but unable to write the kind of books he really wanted to do. But eventually, something gave.

More about the story is recounted in a long event report posted in March 2003 by Brian Dear, who had attended Gruber's signing at Mysterious Galaxy and had known Gruber from THE WELL, an online writer's forum where people could hang out and talk about writing:

Interestingly, Gruber referenced Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, several times during his talk. One of ToN's characters was inspired in part by the hero of Ellison's book. There's a strange parallel between that hero and Gruber's own life story. Unable until this year to be his true self to the public, to speak publicly about his writing life, unable to do book signings as Robert K. Tanenbaum, having to deal with Tanenbaum talking on TV or in lectures or interviews about how he writes "his" books... think about living that kind of life for sixteen years. That's enough to drive anyone crazy.

No wonder Gruber found refuge online on The WELL, where for the past ten or so years he's hung out in the "writers" conference, telling us all about his real-life Ghostwriter v. "Fleshwriter" ordeal, discreetly keeping the Tanenbaum name out of the conversation. Everyone in the writers' conference knew, or found out eventually (it wasn't hard: at times Gruber would post notes announcing not one but two of his ghostwritten novels were on the NYT or Amazon bestseller lists at the same time), but they kept it a secret from the conference postings. Now, after all of these years, he emerges out into the world, kind of like (if you'll pardon the analogy) a grub having lived underground for seventeen years before climbing the tree and turning into a cicada. (Funny, guess what "tanenbaum" means in German.) It's as if the grub desperately wants to tell its own miraculous story of life underground; but nobody seems to care, they're here for the cicada. At the same time the cicada is enjoying its new metamorphosis.

Suffice to say that Tanenbaum wasn't terribly thrilled about Gruber shopping around his own work to publishers independent of Tanenbaum and wanting to make a break. Then when TROPIC OF NIGHT (and its sequel, January's VALLEY OF BONES) sold to HarperCollins, the schism was essentially irrevocable.

There are so many reasons why the Gruber/Tanenbaum story fascinate me--like why someone would stay for sixteen years writing essentially anonymously--but the most compelling is the family thing. Would Gruber have stuck around so long if Tanenbaum hadn't been his cousin? Somehow, I doubt it. Were there outside family pressures imploring him to stick with a sure thing, with something that netted him a nice share of the proceeds (evidently, Gruber and Tanenbaum eventually split contracts and royalties 50/50, so it wasn't like Gruber was in indentured servitude throughout those years.) And Gruber obviously did as good a job as he could with Butch Karp, Marlene Ciampi and other characters who populate the Tanenbaum novels; though I haven't read any myself, the reviews have generally stayed on the positive side.

Never mind that with families to support, sticking with the safe bet is often the easiest and most workable option, while going further out to write what you really want may result in heartbreak. And with Gruber, selling TROPIC OF NIGHT was the result of a fairly long process of rejection, where publishers allegedly told him that the work would never sell. So when faced with that kind of answer, why not stick to the sure thing?

But all I know is that this story's far from over. No one knows who is currently ghostwriting Tanenbaum's books (but I wonder if he's gone back to the earlier ghostwriting well of his non-fiction days) but fans at Amazon are decidedly unhappy, based on their reactions to the latest one, HOAX. And evidently there are still legal and contractual issues being worked out which has only worsened the schism between the two cousins. And no doubt when VALLEY OF BONES is released, attention will be focused anew on L'Affaire Tanenbaum.

Part II, which will focus on ghostwriting in general, appears tomorrow afternoon.

Comments

[Jim Winter]

What I don't get is why AUTHORS use ghostwriters. I understand why actors, businessmen, and politicians use them. They're busy, and usually you see the other writer's name credited somewhere, at least in acknowledgments. And someone like, say, William Shatner usually outlines a particular story, then meets regularly with his "collaborator" (Nice euphemism) to go over progress and make changes.

But why does James Patterson use ghostwriters? Patterson IS a writer, therefore shouldn't he only put his name on works that wrote? Or do like Tom Clancy. "James Patterson's THE PLAGIARIZED HACK, by Boston Teran." I don't get why a novelist would do something like that except that the check cleared just as writer's block set in.

Why I work well in advance.

[David Montgomery]

Right on, Jim. I suppose we have to conclude that those folks AREN'T authors. Tannenbaum sure as hell isn't. He's a fraud, nothing more, nothing less.

Can you imagine that he got HALF the money just for putting his name on the book and doing a little publicity? My goodness, what a job!

[Aldo]

I was present while he was signing his latest book. As far as I know no one asked him who wrote HOAX.

Now, if any of you busy authors need a 'pre-published' ghostwriter, I'm available. Contract to be discussed at a later date, say a case of Molson Dry.

[Bryon]

I've never understood ghost writers or anything like that for authors either Jim. For me, the biggest part of writing is expressing something personal, some sort of reaction to the world around me. My books and stories are so much a part of me that I can't imagine anyone else writing them.

This goes back to something I realized in college too. All of my papers were very personal and unique to me and I could just never understand how people could buy papers on the Internet or have someone else write for them.

I write with my heart on my sleeve, anything else is just plan hack writing in my opinion.

[michael]

As a fan of the Karp Ciampi series (currently and disappointedly reading Hoax)I don't know what to say ... the books I enjoyed are still enjoyable and the characters I loved still delight me (especially Lucy and Tran). So if nobody got hurt and everybody got well ... nah. It still feels shitty.

[jeanne ketterer]

I wonder if there's a ghostwriting organization or something. Or a website listing ghostwriters of 'famous' authors or guess the ghostwriter ...

Jeanne

[David Montgomery]

I think one of the reasons the publishers do this is not because of the readers -- readers don't seem to care in most cases whose name is on the book -- but rather for reviewers.

I certainly would not review a book published under circumstances like this... and I suspect I'm not the only one.

[John Rickards]

Well, in Patterson's case the cruel part of me suggests that if he directs the plot and style of his ghostwriters, presumably anything he wrote himself would be even worse (a theory which the Tanenbaum/HOAX story seems to suggest might be true). But then my loathing for Patterson is well known.

I suspect it's mostly down to laziness. A writer realises they can keep earning big bucks for doing next to no work and letting someone else do the actual writing. They're just a brand name. And for a ghostwriter, like Sarah says, it's a sure-thing with no selling involved.

But it must suck. I wouldn't touch it myself, and I've not yet read a writer I've known (or at least I've known to be rumoured to be) ghostwritten that I've actually liked. And I wouldn't want it myself - I like to play with my own ideas, and I can't write a decent story plan to save my life, which'd screw them for something to work with.

Although I'm afraid, Bryon, I'm a hack - I write stuff I think is cool, but not something that necessarily means anything to me. ;-)

Although my imagination has proved remarkably prescient at times.

[Terrill Lee Lankford]

Jim's statement at the top of the page - "What I don't get is why AUTHORS use ghost writers" - misses the point of Tanenbaum's story. It appears that he's NOT an author - and never has been. He's an attorney. A fairly famous one at that. And that's a hook publishers use to promote books.

If the stories are true, Tanenbaum has always either used "co-writers" or ghost writers. Either way, his actual contributions to the manuscripts are very suspect. His role has been that of the huckster. He's been out there hawking the wares - and he seems to have done a very good job of it. This is a very telling story about our reading culture in general. Publishers and reviewers (and readers!) give a lot more play to an author who has a great personal backstory to add to the hustle than some shlub who's just sitting in his room, cranking out good stories. An okay book by a celeb will (almost) always do better than a great book by an unknown. So blame the process (and the public). I wonder how well those books would have done with Michael Gruber's name on them instead of Tanenbaum's? We'll never know, even with Gruber's new work, because Gruber's new books will arrive with the fanfare of "Tanenbaum's Ghost Writer" attached to them, so they're bound to do better than if he was just hitting the market cold.

Gotta give Tanenbaum points for the balls it took to let the new one go out with the title "HOAX," though. The possibility that many people would mistake it for an autobiography must be strong. Or maybe it was just more canny marketing.

TL

[Bryon]

Well duh, John. I knew you were a hack, but couldn't pin it to any specific reason. This makes sense.

As a point of clarification though, since I am prone to the post first-think later style of back blogging, I meant that I'd consider myself a hack writer if I wrote anything I didn't have a connection to.

And by the way John, who are you to judge what kind of emotional attachment Patterson's monkeys' have to their work?

[John Rickards]

Well, I dunno. I've heard they've been threatening strike action until they can get a higher banana ration, even with their crappy union. Something to do with the extra stress and complication of having to write romance, which in the chimpanzee world means tapping the female on the back to let her know you're there before you mount her, rather than having the whole thing come as a surprise.

It's an alien world to them, and not one they want to write about. Sure, they'll bang away at their typewriters, but their hearts just aren't in it...

(Note for other backbloggers: the whole Patterson-monkey business arises from a long-running joke we developed at BCon. It had hand motions and everything.)

:-)

[David Montgomery]

The sad thing about Patterson is that his books were actually pretty good, back when he apparently wrote them. Now that he publishes 17 books a year, though, apparently utilizing a round robin of hacks chained to work stations, they're awful. No surprise there.

Of course, at least in Patterson's case, it makes sense, as he was a marketing man long before he was a writer.

[michael]

It occurred to me last night why this whole thing makes me so sad. I grew to love Butch, Marlene, Lucy, Zack, Giancarlo, Guma, Tran and the rest in the hands of whomever wrote the first several books. Now they, THEY, are being betrayed. Sappy, but true.

[Carel Two-Eagle]

Ghosted or not, I relate strongly to Marlene, having attracted violent nuts & been forced to save myself more than once.. including crooked cops. I did the right thing & crooked cops went after me for upsetting their applecart. Tough noogies! They violated their oaths & the public's (already minimal) trust. I just told what I saw. That isn't 'making' trouble'; that's being part of 'fixing' it. There is no feeling quite like having to take a loaded gun away from some idiot (hiding behind a badge & quirks in the law).. and while we shouldn't 'have' to, I'm sure as HELL glad I could, & did. I see no betrayal in having the book ghosted - Michael Gruber volunteered, after all. And in the long run, why does anyone give a rip who contributed what? The final result is attention-getting, attention-holding, and just plain good.