The curse of the second novel

What do Citizen Girl, Everyone Worth Knowing and The Debutante Divorcee have in common? All are second novels that were considerably less successful/popular than the authors' debut books.

This great Newsday article examines the "sophomore slump" - just how hard is it to write a second book? Read on to find out more.

The piece includes insights from Carolyn Parkhurst (whose book, The Dogs of Babel, was called Lorelei's Secret in the UK), Janet Fitch and Sue Monk Kidd - who laments the woman who told her 'I don't see how you can ever write another novel that good' causing her to throw out everything she wrote for the next two weeks - as well as revealing that Amy Tan gave up on six novels before finally publishing The Kitchen God's Wife.

It's a really interesting article, but it's worth a read just to learn that there's a "support group for second novelists" in Los Angeles (where else?).

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