The Fiction Class by Susan Breen

This book review has been written in connection with Blog Stop Book Tours.

The  Fiction Class (Plume/February 200 tells the story of Arabella Hicks, who spends her days alternately agonizing over and avoiding the novel she has been writing for seven years, with Wednesdays being the notable exception.  On Wednesdays, Arabella teaches an adult education fiction writing class and after the class, she makes her dreaded weekly visit to the nursing home where her mother lives, which invariably turns into an argument.

Arabella is filled with self-doubt. She can’t come up with an ending for her book because she doesn’t think anything she writes will be good enough. She is constantly wondering if her students think she is a decent (or even qualified) teacher, and she’s always worrying about the tension in her relationship with her mother.

Things change one Wednesday when Arabella makes a surprising discovery: her mother wants to learn how to write, and she wants Arabella to teach her! This revelation starts Arabella on a journey that will change her outlook on life, opening her up to love, new friendships, an improved understanding of her mother (and herself), and ultimately, the most important story she will ever write.

Have you ever heard that saying about observational comedy, “It’s funny because it’s real,”? That is exactly how I felt about the characters in The Fiction Class. Susan Breen teaches fiction classes for Gotham Writers’ Workshop in Manhattan, and her experience shines through in this book! Not only are Arabella and her mother heartbreakingly vivid and believable, the students of the fiction class are unique and endearing. I found myself rooting for all the characters in Arabella’s class, hoping they would succeed (even the pervert and the guy who is constantly asking stupid questions).

The thing that makes The Fiction Class stand apart from every other fiction book I’ve come across is the inclusion of writing exercises. Sprinkled throughout the book are pages that contain the actual assignments that Arabella hands out to her students at the end of each class. For example:

• “Think about a family gathering: a holiday, a birthday, a funeral. Write about that gathering in the first person from the point of view of a child.”
• “A boat sinks during a storm, and only ten of its passengers make it to the lifeboat. One by one the survivors are knocked off until, after one month at sea, only two survivors are left. There is not enough food for both of them, and one of them is going to have to get rid of the other. One of them is a teenage girl who is very storng for her age, but she is blind. The other is a musician from a successful boys’ band. He is twenty-six years old and small than the girl. Who will survive? Write the final scene.”

Susan Breen’s wealth of writing experience was evident in the reading of this book. I found it hard to put down, and although the ending was satisfying, I was disappointed when I finished the book, simply because it was over. A great book always leaves me feeling that way.

Here’s the bottom line: If you love an entertaining story with a heartwarming message, don’t pass this book up! If you enjoy writing, the fiction exercises make The Fiction Class by Susan Breen doubly delightful.