At Booklist Coffee ™, we often joke about authors whose deaths have done nothing to keep them from publishing new novels. In the New York Times (”The Ludlum Conundrum: A Dead Novelist Provides New Thrills“), Richard Sandomir reports that Robert Ludlum has become even more prolific since he died. And yes, the successful Matt Damon movie franchise plays a role – both in the success of the series and in the timing of the article.
"People expect something from a Robert Ludlum book, and if we can publish Ludlum books for the next 50 years and satisfy readers, we will," said Jeffrey Weiner, the executor of Mr. Ludlum’s estate.
Lends new meaning to the term ghostwriter, don’t you think?
July 31st, 2007 at 3:07 pm
The interesting thing about the posthumous Ludlum books, as pointed out by Booklist’s indefatigable Ludlum reviewer, David Pitt, is that some of them seem to better than the ones written when the author was alive! When breathing, Ludlum was a hopelessly clunky stylist, but somehow when his brain died, his ear sharpened. There’s hope for all bad writers.
September 19th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
[…] Apparently it takes a while for U.S. newspapers to reach Australia. Six weeks after the New York Times (”The Ludlum Conundrum,” by Richard Sandomir) explored the phenomenon of Robert Ludlum’s incredible post-mortem productivity, The Age (”The Ludlum conspiracy,” by Rob Sharp) gets in on the act. The author’s estate works like a “film studio,” we are told, “presenting old books completed by other writers or new ones in which Ludlum is credited along with the new author. Despite this, a number of mysterious figures remain in the shadows.” […]