One evening I went to Nob Hill Foods, the large grocery store near my house, to try to find ripe avocados for taco night. As usual I stopped at the book rack, which offers a modest selection of mass-market paperback thrillers and romance novels. Because I buy books almost anywhere they are sold, and love thrillers of all varieties, I have purchased many novels at Nob Hill Foods and other grocery stores over the years.
As I scanned titles by the usual suspects—Nora Roberts (and her nom de plume, J.D. Robb), Karin Slaughter, Harlan Coben, James Patterson—an author whose name I recognized but whose books I had never come across jumped out at me. Charlie Donlea. The book was Twenty Years Later. The cover featured a few words from the New York Times Book Review: “Excellent . . . Donlea tells a propulsive tale.” I picked it up and read the back: “An entertaining thriller” (Kirkus); “Breathtaking pacing and clever plot twists” (Publishers Weekly); “Plotlines merge seamlessly into a surprise ending” (Mystery Scene).
I flipped through the first few pages and saw a large boldface chapter heading: LOWER MANHATTAN, SEPTEMBER 11, 2001. The first line: “It was a bright, cloudless morning with blue sky as far as the eye could see.”
I remember that sky. I saw it with my own eyes, around seven a.m. on the day in question, leaning out of a kitchen window in Brooklyn to get a sense of the weather before leaving for my job as a copywriter at Morgan Stanley, on the seventieth floor of Two World Trade Center.
And I saw it again a short while later, moments after exiting the trade center complex after a protracted evacuation down a jam-packed stairwell. At some point, still many floors above the ground, a deafening boom of unknown origin, both heard and felt, shook the building, which then rocked back and forth. An agonizing amount of time elapsed before I emerged into a scene of chaos that still defies description, and in violation of the repeatedly shouted orders of rescue personnel turned around and looked up. There were the burning towers, the cause of whose catastrophic damage was still a mystery to me, crisply framed against a stunningly clear sky.
I dropped Twenty Years Later into my shopping basket next to a box of All-Bran. I will forever be interested in how September 11 is portrayed in pretty much all media. I mean the event itself, the attacks and the aftermath, as opposed to, say, the geopolitical fallout as it plays out in procedurals and espionage tales.
The other thing, in this case the main thing: Charlie Donlea, author of Twenty Years Later, is also Brian Charles.
*
Stories That Touch Your Heart. These, according to a link that had lately appeared in the first page of search results for my name, were the purview of the author of Before I Go.
I had discovered the other Brian Charles in 2023. I was reeling from a cascade of career setbacks that had reached operatic heights in January, when my literary agent of almost two decades informed me in a brief email that he no longer wished to represent me, giving me the old “it’s not you, it’s me.” At that vulnerable moment, typing Bryan Charles author into a search bar was a masochistic compulsion that served only as a dark reminder that I had not published a book since early in the first Obama administration.
But Brian Charles had.
On the author’s website, briancharlesbooks.com (I had once owned the domain bryancharlesbooks.com), Before I Go, published 27 September 2022, was described, pitch-letter style, as The Notebook meets The Shack, a “poignant tale about how the people we love stay with us forever . . . in sometimes surprising ways.” A blurb by Ellen Marie Wiseman, author of The Orphan Collector, emphatically stated, “If you’re a fan of Nicholas Sparks or Richard Paul Evans, this is a must-read!” The book had a snow globe on the cover and on the website was shown against a snowy backdrop. Below that was a stock image of an airplane flying over cotton-candy clouds toward the sun.
I clicked About and then was looking at a photo of a square-jawed fellow—whose name, I learned, was not Brian Charles. Rather, that was “the pseudonym of a bestselling thriller author. Before I Go is his first foray into literary fiction.”
At that point I confess I became a little steamed. As it happened, I was contemplating the same literary duality in reverse. That is, I had written a kind of gothic thriller, and while not a radical departure stylistically from my other work, I thought it would be interesting—perhaps, assuming such an event would ever come to pass—to publish it under a pseudonym. I started to make lists of names. Whenever a promising one occurred to me I would type it into a search bar, on the web generally and also Amazon. And if the name elicited a publication record of any kind, even a long-dormant blog—really if there were more than a few hits—I discarded it.
I grant that the epoch comprising the first Obama administration has, to paraphrase Don DeLillo, fallen indelibly into the past. But it is also not, you know, that long ago, and it would seem to have been unlikely for a bestselling thriller author looking for a pseudonym to type Brian Charles into a search engine and not learn of my—or more to the point, my books’—existence (also that of a certain West Indian cricketer, born 1995).
In small type at the bottom of the page, I noticed the words Brian Charles were a link. I clicked it. And there was the same square-jawed chap, now leaning casually against a desk in an austere office scene.
This was Charlie Donlea, author, according to the web copy, of Stories You Can’t Wait to Finish, but Won’t Want to End. A button said Enter Here, so I did.
*
Charlie Donlea has published seven novels since his 2017 debut, placing him squarely in the thriller-a-year camp. The titles, like those of many one-a-year authors, are utilitarian to the point of abstraction—Don’t Believe It, The Girl Who Was Taken, Long Time Gone, Some Choose Darkness, Twenty Years Later. Donlea alludes to his conception of literature in the acknowledgments of the last, thanking readers who “have plucked [his] novel from a sea of entertainment options.” An ancient debate—what are novels for?—but I essentially agree that for the vast majority of readers books exist, as Donlea (and occasionally Graham Greene!) would have it, as entertainments.
Still, for the writer with any notion of quality control, the book-a-year model poses risks. Overall I like the Jack Reacher series, at least before Lee Child started cowriting the books with his brother. But unquestionably there are titles that would have benefited from another year or two of work, as well as a few godawful ones that should never have seen the light of day, and likely would not have had they been written by an unknown.
Last summer I reread The Pelican Brief after finishing John Grisham’s latest, Camino Ghosts, and the contrast between the sharp, suspenseful, relatively sophisticated early work and the slack, phoned-in feeling of the latter was not only striking but borderline depressing. (Do not get me started on The Exchange, Grisham’s lazy, thimble-deep “sequel” to The Firm, one of my favorite novels, genre or otherwise.)
Perhaps the greatest American book (or three)-a-year thriller writer was John D. MacDonald, whose work spans the latter half of the twentieth century. MacDonald’s prose, even in the early hardboiled novels, was consistently rich, the characters complex. Plus even with all those books he came up with cool titles: The Neon Jungle, April Evil, A Man of Affairs, One Monday We Killed Them All, as well as, of course, the Travis McGee series “color” novels, e.g., Nightmare in Pink, The Long Lavender Look, etc. It has been years since my MacDonald phase, and while I am sure I did not enjoy all his books equally, I also never found myself reading through a haze of irritation because the story had lost steam way before the end, indicating a complete lack of narrative forethought, or featured wafer-thin characters behaving in inexplicable ways, or because the plot in a given novel’s final third (and one sees this constantly now) started Jiffy-Popping preposterous “twists.”
In contemporary terms, Michael Connelly, prodigious author of the Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer novels, has in my opinion produced the most consistently good thriller fiction of the last thirty years. But even he resorts to the occasional cheap trick, like having his two most famous characters turn out to be half brothers, thus merging the franchises, or using Bosch’s daughter, now a police officer herself, in a way that seems—so far, anyway—intended only to extend the brand. Very occasionally, reading one of the lesser works, like 2024’s jumbled The Waiting, I have found myself wishing Connelly would simply have taken a year off.
*
In Charlie Donlea’s Twenty Years Later, Victoria Ford, accused killer of bestselling author Cameron Young, is on the eightieth floor of One World Trade Center on the morning of 9/11, discussing the case with her lawyer, when the first plane strikes. Victoria is killed in the tower’s collapse—but not before leaving a message on her sister’s answering machine, pleading her innocence, despite the preponderance of forensic evidence, the specifics of which she mentions, and begging her sister to clear her name.
(Donlea’s website features an audio clip of the message—panicked voices in the background, sounds of chaos, as an actor dramatically recites Victoria’s last words. As a 9/11 survivor—for want of a better phrase—I must say that I felt this was in poor taste, akin to the flip-book section of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which depicts a person “falling up” the side of one of the trade center towers.)
Victoria’s remains are identified—twenty years later—and several narrative engines start to rev. Avery Mason, host of the smash-hit Dateline-type show American Events, jumps on the story. Walt Jenkins, the detective long ago assigned to the Cameron Young murder, now in self-exile in Jamaica, numbing his psychic wounds with rum, is drawn back into the investigation by a former boss with ulterior motives. Avery and Walt join forces, then fall into bed. But each has secrets. Despite her celebrity, Avery is not who she claims to be. And of course she has no idea that Walt is using her to track down her financier father, architect of a devastating Ponzi scheme, who has eluded capture for his crimes.
Questions multiply.
Why has Avery purchased a forged passport from a shady figure in Park Slope? What drove Walt to flee New York and drown his sorrows in high-end rum in Jamaica? What is happening at the prestigious sailing school in Wisconsin? Talking of sailing, is there more to the tragic sailing accident that killed Avery’s brother? The knots in the rope that bound Cameron Young when he was murdered are belatedly revealed (by Avery) to have been sailing knots. And talking of bestselling authors, how is Natalie Ratcliff, creator of the popular Peg Perugo series of novels and accused murderer-slash-9/11 victim Victoria Ford’s best friend, involved in all of this?
The story, as today’s “twisty” thriller must, accelerates in a blur of improbable jack-in-the-box revelations. Ultimately, September 11 functions as little more than a springboard to other plot strands, and soon one senses that Donlea stitched two novel ideas—one involving a 9/11 victim accused of murder, the other a journalist confronting her dark past—into an unwieldy whole.
*
Brian Charles’s Before I Go likewise begins with an air crash. In a dramatic two-page opener of the James Patterson school, Ben Gamble fumbles with a letter from a mysterious correspondent—”You need to tell your wife, Ben. She deserves to know the truth.“—as the plane he is on crashes into the Pacific Ocean.
It must be said that of the literary genres I am conversant in, inspirational romance is not one, but Charles hangs a story of love and healing on a pop-thriller frame. Crucial information is withheld, even when it makes for clunky reading—a character’s brother goes unnamed so often it becomes distracting, clearly setting the reader up for a grand revelation later. Some chapters end cliffhanger-style, e.g. with cryptic allusions to shared secrets. Traumatic personal histories are teased out. Sudden phone calls impart momentous information.
Ben Gamble, last seen picturing his wife Abby’s “beautiful face and radiant smile” as his plane sank into the ocean, reappears on a deserted island with two other survivors. He marks the days, and ultimately the many months, on a tree, reliving his time with Abby, from the moment of their first meeting, by reading his journal, which is written in the form of letters to their son who died in infancy. Meanwhile, in Chicago, after a long period of grieving, Abby is drawing ever closer to Joel Keaton, a workaholic doctor—like Abby, he is superficially perfect—struggling to come to terms with his own sad past and painful present as his father slips away in hospice.
For a year a dreamlike inertia pervades the island. Ben wanders from the shack where he has found shelter to his favorite tree to the lagoon where the plane’s wreckages rests. He loses himself in the journal, reflects on the mistakes he made in his marriage and the summer he learned to fish. But then “Ben made a decision. He promised himself that if he ever made it back to his wife, he’d find a way to fix things. He closed his eyes and during a silent prayer made the same promise to God—that despite all his mistakes he’d find a way to make Abby happy.” Six months later (approximately halfway through the novel) it is “time to find his way back to his wife.”
Questions multiply.
Will Ben, with the help of fellow survivor, the teenaged William, ever make it off the island? If so, can he possibly, miraculously, get home to Abby before she gives her heart fully to Joel Keaton? Talking of Joel, will he at last forgive himself for his part in the shattering childhood event that rended his family, for which he has long assumed the blame? What of the recurring dream he is having in which a stranger asks if he has seen any deer? Joel’s sleeping mind senses “the man was a source of answers to questions that had haunted his life.” And talking of dreams, will tech billionaire Christian Malone realize his ambition to build a luxury kitesurfing resort on a remote island in the Pacific with a rather revelatory name? Sounds like the place where Ben is stranded. Will Christian and his team of investors arrive before Ben shoves off in his handmade boat?
The novel crescendos in a volley of coincidences not so much improbable as supernatural, and a Big Reveal, before ticking down with several brief chapters whose frank emotionalism, while gratifying in a tie-things-together sort of way, to this reader, at least, does not feel earned. Despite their tragic histories, the characters remain oddly vague. One longs for more of the spark imparted by Abby’s sister Maggie, who essentially fulfills the rom-com role of saucy best friend. While filling in only the faintest shadings of character, her incessant oversharing about her stagnant sex life (she is pregnant, and her husband will not go near her) at least feels somewhat interesting, especially when compared with the blandly idealized portraits of Abby, Joel, and the one person you would think might be going a little crazy, and therefore have a deranged thought or two, Ben.
I perked up briefly when Abby suggests she and Joel watch Casablanca. Here, at last, was a cultural reference, possibly an indicator of a personal interest or taste. Is Abby a movie buff? What is it about this one? She tells Joel Casablanca is not like other movies (a statement with which it is hard to find fault), and that she will explain its many subtleties. However, the moment passes. The scene slides back into generalities before ending a beat later with Joel asleep on the couch.
*
Crucial insight into the Donlea/Charles trajectory is once more found on the acknowledgments page. Thanking his agent, Brian Charles says, “[Before I Go] was the book that started our journey together. Thanks for never giving up on it.” He thanks his two teenaged children, one of whom was an infant when Charles started writing the novel; the other had not been born yet. In other words, Before I Go was an old, perhaps repeatedly rejected manuscript that Charlie Donlea, now publishing in another genre, resuscitated and managed, somehow, to get out in the world under a pseudonym one letter removed from my name.
I did not wish to be mistaken for Brian Charles. But I was not sure I wanted to be Bryan Charles anymore either.
But I would much rather be mistaken for the author of Twenty Years Later, which at least begins as a competent, smoothly written thriller before succumbing to the usual pitfalls of rushed prose and corny twists. While I do not aspire to it myself, there is no shame in this approach. Harlan Coben, to take just one prominent example, publishes bestseller after bestseller using this template. Invariably his books feel as though he has written the last hundred pages in a day or two, while consuming mass quantities of some amphetamine. And if the details of all those overly determined plot mechanics leave your mind the moment you close the book, well, there will be another one next year.
Before I Go, on the other hand, makes for an unfortunately lifeless passion project, if indeed that is what it was. Given years to improve this “foray into literary fiction”—a descriptor I rarely feel compelled to defend, but must quibble with in this instance—the author’s sentences do not exactly ooze high craft: “During the year after Jacob’s death, she and Ben worked and slept;” “The cab pulled to the curb in front of Pops, a trendy wine bar for the thirty-something crowd;” “He stood in the conference room, the windows of which looked out over Silicon Valley;” “She looked in the mirror and admitted to her reflection that she looked damn good;” “The tears seemed to be ever present now.”
When I called the bookstore to special order Before I Go, the clerk asked for my name. “But I’m not the author,” I rushed to tell her, and launched into a too-elaborate explanation of the situation. “Ah,” she said, and took my phone number down.
No, I did not wish to be mistaken for Brian Charles. But I was not sure I wanted to be Bryan Charles anymore either.
*
By chance, my reading of Charlie Donlea’s Twenty Years Later coincided, for unrelated reasons, with my thinking about 9/11 more than I had in years. I was going through boxes, pulling out artifacts—mutual fund brochures and newsletters I had written, my last remaining Morgan Stanley business card, notes for an essay dashed on stationery with my name and a World Trade Center address, even the clothes and shoes I was wearing that long-ago morning . . . leaning out of my kitchen window, into what looked to be a lovely day.
The period after 9/11 was the worst of my life. But in that moment I was also possessed of a rare clarity, a reckless sense of urgency to pursue my dream of being a writer. Still, I wish I had been more grateful, more gracious with the people who were there for me. Wish I had been able to find unequivocal joy in just being alive. Instead, it would take nearly a quarter century, culminating in another dark chapter, almost pitch-black, during which the dream I had continued to chase so recklessly seemed to die before my eyes—a sea of rejection, two unpublished novels representing a decade of work, a message from my agent beginning “This is a difficult email to write but . . .”—it would take all of that before I once more emerged, unsure what had happened, into an irrevocably altered landscape that would mark the start of a new phase of life.
And once on the other side of that, now middle-aged, medicated, pretty much starting from square one, I felt like a different person. People I cared about told me I seemed like a different person. Someone I love dearly, a kind of second mother figure, whom I had not seen lately, told me on the phone she could hear it in my voice. I was, to my utter astonishment, after having my ass repeatedly handed to me for the better part of three years by agents, editors, gatekeepers of all stripes, grateful—at last!—to be around still, hopelessly in love with literature, eager to get back to my desk and write.
A different person . . .
I decided to add my middle name to my byline.
So far I have not come across another Bryan Alistair Charles.
