There’s a reason we writers say, “kill your darlings” and it has nothing to do with murder or even mystery. Instead, it refers to those words or phrases about which we are all a little too over fond.
I reviewed Howard Norman’s latest, The Ghost Clause, for the Boston Globe this week and was reminded why that’s such good advice. There’s so much about this novel that’s beautiful and well crafted. But the third time in five pages that I ran into the word “crepuscular…”? Ugh. Just no.
You can read the full review here.
“A dead writer haunts his former home, reliving the conflicts of his own past life as he observes the young couple who have moved into the rural Vermont farmhouse he once shared with his beloved wife. That’s the premise of National Book Award finalist Howard Norman’s latest novel, “The Ghost Clause.” But if that sounds like a horror story, or at least a tragedy, this new book is anything but…”