Secrets, lies, and cliffhangers: reading Julie Clark’s The Ghostwriter

Julie Clark’s book The Ghostwriter was rated 4,13 on GoodReads, which piqued my interest. I just finished reading the last pages, and I’m ready to share my thoughts. But first, what’s this book about?

The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

In The Ghostwriter, Julie Clark tells the story of Taylor. Taylor works as a ghostwriter, writing other people’s stories – and she’s good at it. But when she speaks out against a colleague ghostwriter, a misogynist man named Calder, it causes her downfall as a ghostwriter. Nobody wants to hire her anymore. So when we get to know Taylor, she’s struggling to make ends meet. Then she finally gets a job offer, and she’s in no position to say no. Even though she wants to.

Because the job is offered by her estranged father, Vincent. Taylor has cut ties with him, and the only good memories she has of him are from her early childhood. After that, her father turned to alcohol and drugs and neglected her. Her mother left their home during Taylor’s childhood. Taylor’s father is a very successful writer, and now he wants to write an autobiography and needs Taylor to help him, because he’s suffering from Lewy Body Dementia, which causes his memories to fade.

Anyway, Taylor’s father has a troubled history of his own: he’s suspected by many people of killing his younger sister Poppy and his older brother Danny. In his autobiography, he wants to tell his side of the story.

So this is what The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark is about: it’s both the story of a young woman with a troubled past unraveling the secrets of the father who abandoned her, while kind of solving two murders along the way.

What to expect from The Ghostwriter by Julie Clark

Julie Clark changes perspectives every chapter. You get a chapter from Taylor’s point of view, and then sometimes one from Vincent (her father, when he was young) and Poppy. This way of telling the story certainly keeps the reader hooked and guessing. However, I also found it a bit annoying. Julie constantly leaves the reader hanging. Just when it gets interesting, she’ll change the point of view. After all the build-up, I found the ending kind of disappointing and not all that interesting.

I was expecting the outcome, and it was a bit of a letdown that I was right.

Summing up

Julie Clark certainly takes the reader for a ride. But the thing is, I didn’t like the ride all that much. There were too many annoying cliffhangers, leaving the reader (me) hanging. And like I said, the ending was disappointing. There’s also the whole thing with the unreliable narrator that is Vincent, Taylor’s father. When he’s not flat-out lying, he’s talking in riddles, which Taylor — and the reader — have to figure out. And I’ve never been any good at riddles.

All this to say that I was very curious to discover what happened back then in 1975, but I won’t be picking up any other books by Julie Clark. Intriguing as her story may sound, I’m not enamored with her way of storytelling.

But if you like a lot of twists and turns, and cliffhangers, then The Ghostwriter may be a great read for you.

As for me, I rate it 3.85.

You can find The Ghostwriter at Amazon and your local bookstore.

You might also like to read my review of Yellowface.