The Award

Pearl (The Dante Chamber) takes literary ambition to macabre extremes in this gleefully wicked satire. Insecure writer David Trent is approaching 30 and struggling to publish his first novel while his fiancée, Bonnie, supports him financially. David is ecstatic to learn their new landlord in Cambridge, Mass., is Silas Hale, an award-winning novelist and fiction editor at the New Yorker. He hopes to find a mentor in Silas, who lives downstairs from them with his wife. Instead, Silas turns out to be a nasty piece of work. When winter approaches, he refuses to heat Bonnie and David’s apartment, expects David to shovel the driveway, and warns him, “Do not ever make eye contact with us.” The next year, David publishes his novel with a small press and it unexpectedly wins a prestigious award, causing Silas to change his tune and invite David to his holiday party. But when David’s newfound status is threatened on the night of the party, he takes drastic measures, and the evening ends with a dead body. While the plot is far from believable, Pearl credibly portrays the reckless David and fair-weather Silas, mercilessly laying bare the foibles of their insular and backbiting community of writers. Readers won’t be able to resist this. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME. (Dec.)