ABOUT THE BOOK:
A headlong rush of a thriller/horror that is Misery for Millennials, about a bestselling author who is abducted by her biggest fan and must figure out who he is, where she is, and how to survive and escape, set against the backdrop of fan and convention culture, the literati and the #metoo movement.
Bestselling fantasy author Eli Grey gets into a cab without checking it’s hers, and unquestioningly accepts a drink from the driver. Then she wakes up chained in his basement. With no close family or friends expecting her to check in, Eli knows she’s on her own to save herself. She soon realizes that her abduction wasn’t random–she was targeted. And though she thinks she might recognize her captor, she can’t figure out quite why, or what he wants. But it is clear that he is very familiar with her work, and deeply invested in the fantastical world she created in her books. What follows is a test of wills as Eli pits herself against a man who believes she owes him everything, and is determined to take it from her.
With unflinching prose, “Number One Fan” examines the tension between creator and work, fandom and source material, and the rage of fans who feel they own fiction.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Meg Elison is a California Bay Area author and essayist. She writes science fiction and horror, as well as feminist essays and cultural criticism. She has been published in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Fangoria, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Catapult, and many other places.
She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and the National Writers Union (@paythewriter).
Her debut novel, “The Book of the Unnamed Midwife” won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. Her novelette “The Pill” won the 2021 Locus Award. She is a Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards finalist. She has been an Otherwise Award honoree twice. Her YA debut, “Find Layla,” was published in fall 2020 by Skyscape. It was named one of Vanity Fair’s Best 15 Books of 2020.
Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley.
Author Meg Elison
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Read an exclusive Q&A with Meg:
Where did you get the inspiration for “Number One Fan”?
Meg Elison: “Number One Fan” is written from my years of experience in convention culture, as well as a hellish century (at least) of watching the way women get blamed for everything that happens to them. I wanted to write about what it’s like as a creator to struggle to maintain ownership of your work, your success, and yourself, even as the world tries to convince you that nothing belongs to you. It’s a complex reckoning with identity, artistry, and the way fandom and marketing and media can eat you alive if you’re not careful.
What is your writing process?
Meg: I’m an early morning writer. I like to give my best brain and my freshest approach to the work that matters most. After that, the day can do anything it wants to me and I’ve already completed the thing I wanted to do. I don’t answer emails or texts or any of that stuff until after I’ve given the best part of myself to my work. I don’t edit as I go: I vomit a whole draft out and then let it sit for a while before going back into it. I have a very good writing group that sees my second drafts and gives me valuable feedback and support. I’m proud of my work and I stand behind it, which makes me want to keep working.
Do you write using pen and paper or on a computer?
Meg: When I was younger, I was a pen-to-paper writer. I liked the process of re-typing, and it gave me a quick window into my most common errors and a first-pass edit right there. However, it slows me down considerably; I type over a hundred words a minute and that’s still too slow for how I think. Manually writing with a pen is much slower and I don’t think it benefits me to slow down. At this point, I bash things out on my laptop to get the work done, and then edit the same way. I still write letters and my journal by hand. That’s the best use of it, and it keeps my handwriting from degenerating entirely.
Who is your favorite character in the novel and why?
Meg: Eli’s personal assistant, Joe, is one of the best characters I have ever created. He’s supportive, kind, and a god of details. He’s exactly the sort of person every writer wishes they could have in their corner. Most writers can’t afford an assistant, even part-time like Eli has in Joe. But the dream is to find someone like that someday, and to be able to pay them what they deserve. He’s a well-dressed queer cornerman, and low-key the hero of the story.
If you were a character in your story, which would you like to be?
Meg: I’d like to be as successful as Eli, but I’d also like to not wake up chained in a basement! I’d like to be as helpful as Joe, but I never want to be the power behind the throne when there’s glory to be guzzled. I think I’m going to choose Eli’s stalwart friend: Nella Atwiler. She’s got no time for nonsense and she works hard to get to an enviable spot as a writer in books and film. She’s secretly very cool and extremely talented until she explodes on the scene and it’s not a secret anymore. That’s a power move.
How and why did you choose the names for your main characters?
Meg: I cannot get enough of queer women who use a masculine nickname or diminuitive, so Elizabeth to Eli is an iteration on that concept. Joe has a classic Armenian last name (Papasian), because I was working in an office while I was writing it staffed by half a dozen handsome Armenian geniuses and I enjoyed the prosody of their names so much. I chose the villain’s name (Leonard Lobovich) because it’s a combination of geekiness (Leonard, not Leo; big nerd energy) and something predatory (lobo for wolf, vitch for witch/bitch). My smart detective, Carla Silvestri, is named after a film composer I really admire (Alan Silvestri). He composed the scores for “Back to the Future,” “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” and a thousand other movies that you loved. I have a hard time writing cops, and this helped me stay connected to her: she’s composing, she’s conducting. She’s hearing the tension and the beat.
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