The Ghostwriter Mutiny

“What the hell is going on here, Alex?” I paced the study of my Leadville cabin, where I’d been holed up since finishing A Forest of Mirrors, my so-called magnum opus. I told myself I wasn’t hiding. Just waiting.

Like Jay-Z announcing retirement, I called A Forest of Mirrors my mic drop. Then I vanished. But the longer I was gone, the more the myth became reality. After all these years, I wasn’t even Shawn anymore. I was just Sal Driggs. But now that name was nothing more than first-year MFA scuttlebutt — whispered over lattes in university cafés.

In Forest of Mirrors, Sal Driggs, the self-named hero, was on the run and being pursued for whistleblowing on certain government secrets entrusted to him by a shadowy figure. It was meta. The rumors and conspiracy theories over my real-life disappearance had gone viral and given the book a burgeoning cult following.

No one had called me Shawn in a decade. I didn't even know who I was anymore if Sal Driggs disappeared.

“Sal, is that you?” the voice said through thick static and signal noise. I could hear this sentimental son-of-a-bitch chewing too, on a wad of Big League Chew no doubt, like he was Peter Pan living in a sad 1980’s Never Never Land. “As I live and breathe! To what do I owe the honor? Is that my very own misanthropic J.D. Salinger coming down from the mountaintop at last?”

“Alex, if you can’t explain this, I’m getting new representation.” I was turning various shades of red as I sucked in on a weed pen, pulling in THC and nicotine and blowing out hard, leaving little room for oxygen.

“What’s wrong, Sal. Talk to me,” Alex said, the cluck-cluck-cluck of a slowing subway train droning in the background. Typical. You call your Literary Agent for answers, and instead you need to spoon feed them.

“I just tuned into the Peralta podcast. She was interviewing some jock who claimed to be—get this—Sal Driggs. I am Sal Driggs, Pal-O, and I don’t do public appearances. So, who the f**k was Isabella interviewing—because whoever it was, they were calling themselves me, and everyone just nodded along. This guy doesn’t even look like me.”

“Relax Sal. It is just a publicity stunt by Mariner Fox.”

“A publicity stunt,” I said, nearly bursting a blood vessel in my eye. “A publicity stunt? I never signed off on that. I haven’t even put out a book in two years. I changed my appearance. I live on a damned mountain for God’s sakes. Not a living soul has seen Sal Driggs since 2023!”

“To be honest Sal, there are only a half dozen pictures of you in circulation. You are a hermit. And, uhh, I know it is a sore subject, but your contract, buddy, it doesn’t require your sign-off on advertising decisions.”

“What the hell, Alex? Impersonating me is a little more than an ‘advertising decision,’ don’t you think?”

“I tried to call you, but you haven’t picked up in weeks.”

“I was through-hiking the Colorado Trail, you troglodyte. You know to call Vickie if I’m indisposed.”

“Well, anyway, sales were droopy—have been for a while now—and your Publisher, Terry, called a meeting with the Publicity Manager and Advertising to generate some buzz over your catalogue. Theo and Lindy floated the idea, ‘Let’s hire an actor to go on a podcast tour dropping breadcrumbs about where Sal Driggs has been all these years.’ The whole thing grew legs from there.”

“This is not okay, Alex. Not even close. I am coming to New York. And I swear to God, Alex, when I get there…”

***

I sat at a table at the Station Café in Murray Hill. On the table: a croissant, a double espresso, and a short story collection I hadn’t written. They Ate All the Breadcrumbs was a fitting title. Everyone remembers Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs to find their way home. But that wasn’t the real ending. In the real ending, the birds ate all the bread, and they couldn’t find their way back. Isn’t that how it always goes? The title was stolen from an essay I had written once in Dr. Bearer’s English Seminar. But who else could have known that? Sure as day, the name on the cover was my penname—Sal Driggs.

I read each story, one by one, locked in with blinders on, and a strange feeling started to take hold. Every sentence sounded like mine—cadence, phrasing, voice. Too close. It read like something I’d written… or maybe had?

The terrifying part was that the writing had improved.

Then came Stanley Kubrick Isn’t Home—a story I’d toyed with for years but never finished. An aspiring writer tries to meet Kubrick at Abbotts Mead, where he made The Shining and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick keeps answering the door as the butler, saying, ‘Stanley Kubrick isn’t home.’

The story was witty and cutting. And distinctly written in my own voice. How could anyone else possibly know about the idea for this story?

Sometimes I forget if I invented Sal Driggs or if he invented me. I had summoned him into being one night, and ever since that day the line where I ended and he began became harder to find.

I ran to the mirror and took a long hard look at myself. I wrote those books. It was me. Wasn’t it? What is happening? Am I going insane? The eyes were still my eyes, brown and glowering. The crow’s feet underneath the rims of my Warby Parker glasses were mine too. But those eyes held no answers.

I rushed out of the bathroom and grabbed the barista, muddying the latte art in a freshly made cappuccino and nearly sending the beverage flying.

“Hey, watch it pal,” the kid said.

“Who am I?” I asked.

“I’ve got no idea, dude, but I’m calling the cops.”

The kid looked scared.

I dashed out of the coffee shop in a daze, tripping over my own feet, feeling like I was stuck in a nightmare.

***

Chloe Vance was the Joe Rogan of writing podcasts. And Writer’s Block was The Joe Rogan Experience of the literary world.

“What everyone wants to know,” Chloe said, “is where you have been the last two years.” Chloe’s eyes looked hungry. The set looked like a Victorian study—low amber light, velvet chairs. A vampire’s lair.

“You know, there are things I really can’t get into, but what I think is important to tell everyone is that life imitates fiction. I don’t want people to think I’m in any danger, but some of the things I wrote about in my last book hit a little too close to home and rubbed some people the wrong way, Chloe, and it was better not to take any chances.” Ghost Sal paused and yawned, running his fingers through his flawless sleek slick back faded haircut.

“Wow, Sal! I’m glad you’re not in danger now, but you’ve whetted my appetite here—I must know where you were hiding out and what you’ve been up to. Was it Vegas? Tell me it was Vegas.” She leaned forward and batted those fully curled dime store eyelashes and Sal flashed her a knowing smile, full of veneers like bright white chiclets.

“I don’t like to talk about it, Chloe. But there were threats on my life. Weird coincidences. A man who followed me to a book signing and dropped me a note. A woman at a bar who came up to me and gave me an enigmatic warning… and I didn’t know what to believe.” Sal’s face became vacant like his mind had wandered so far into space that I even wanted to pull him back.

“This is fascinating! Do you think the government was behind all of this… is it safe for you to even talk about?”

***

I stood in front of Alex stewing, on the stoop of his Brooklyn Brownstone, where I had just unceremoniously rang the doorbell over and over again for a full two minutes—I counted—until he materialized.

“This bastard just appeared on Writer’s Block, Alex. What the actual…”

“Isn’t it great? There have been 176 thousand views already, Sal,” Alex said, horizontal screen of his smartphone held up to display the YouTube clip he’d cued up. “Imagine the reader engagement. Great, right?” Alex said like a prepubescent girl with pom poms might say those words.

“Great? No, Alex. Not even close. This man is stealing my identity.”

“Stealing is such a charged word, Sal. Maybe borrowing is a better…”

“What the f**k is this, Alex? Whose side are you on, anyway?” I waved Ghost Sal’s manuscript in Alex’s face. “Explain this to me, Alex, before I get violent. Because I swear, I am about to lose my shit here.”

“Turns out the guy is quite the ghostwriter. The Goodreads rating is 4.2 so far, and it’s only the first week! You’ve never put up those kinds of numbers in your life.”

“You see this fist, Alex? I’m tempted to beat you until even I don’t recognize you. Very tempted.”

***

The poster on the window of the Barnes & Noble on 555 Fifth Avenue showed the cover of a book The Fire Tower, by Sal Driggs, featuring a forest of mirrors consumed in blazing red flames. The image of Sal Driggs on the back cover was clearly his, not mine, porcelain veneers and all. Who even wrote this novel?

Below the poster was an invitation, “Book signing today! Get your signed copy of Forest of Mirrors, signed by the author.”

After the reading, after the three dozen attendees got their signatures, my foot tapping so hard I bore a hole in the nylon carpeting, I finally approached Ghost Sal. He had seen me in the audience. Given me those side eyes and that half smile. Took my temperature. My right fist clenched around a scrap of notebook paper.

“I’ve been wondering when you would show up,” Ghost Sal said, laughing. I didn’t think it was funny. “Get it,” Ghost Sal said. His smile stayed plastered on, too wide, too knowing. I stared at a point in the center of his forehead. “Okay, okay,” he said, “Let’s talk about this.”

“Start talking.” I squeezed my fist so hard my knuckles turned white. His eyes flashed to my fist.

“Remember back in college when we were both in that writers’ group, after Professor Bearer’s English Class?” he said. I started to feel unwell, like I was a wobbly top and the room was spinning around me.

What the hell was this shitty character actor talking about? I’d never seen him before in my life. Had I?

“No,” I said. A lump in my stomach started to gurgle. Sweat droplets formed on my forehead. “No, I don’t remember you at all,” I said, as my temples throbbed.

“Shawn! That’s classic. Just like you. Always putting everyone on.” He grinned. A half grin.

“What are you talking about?” I said as the waves of nausea began to scream at me to run to the nearest restroom.

“Shawn,” he said. “We both agreed that those ideas, that those manuscripts, that they were fair game, buddy. And with you retiring, it’s my turn now. Fair is fair, bro. You signed the contract, remember?”

Had I seen him before? A writer’s group party after a workshop? Did he lift some stories that we were passing around like cheap weed? Pick my brain while I was high? Or did Sal Driggs step off the page?

I ran to the bathroom and hurled my guts out.

I looked up in the mirror at my bloodshot eyes, spiraling.

There was only one thing to do.

***

The only way you got into Terry Godden’s office at Mariner Fox was if you went through his Executive Assistant, Janice, who had magical abilities to deny entry. Or you took the road less traveled and impersonated a janitor and hid all night in the Janitor’s closet and caught him between 6:15 am and 8:15 am, when scarcely a soul could be found on the 45th Floor.

If you hadn’t guessed, I chose the road less traveled.

Terry looked up from his croissant and some homeopathic green health concoction they’ll someday call ‘liquid cancer.’ The look on Terry’s face was equal parts ‘What the f**k!’ and ‘Of course!’ at the same time. I wonder if they’ve come up with an emoji for that one.

“The grifter returns,” he said. And I took a step back, trying to figure out what the hell that meant.

“Terry, I demand to know what is going on here,” I said, searching his brow for a hint of recognition. But all I saw was a furrowed brow full of disgust.

“Before security comes and escorts you out of the building, I want you to listen well. You just don’t go around stealing other people’s work and passing it off as your own… for years.”

“Exactly. You guys are letting this guy impersonate me. Letting him use my identity to put out his own writing. Where in my contract does it say you can do that to me?”

“You’re an impostor. But it ends now. You hear? You’re lucky we’re not suing you for the royalties. That’s what we’d be doing if I had it my way.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sal told me all about you, Shawn. Told me everything. About your little writers’ group. How you took his work back in college and never looked back.”

“That’s not true, Terry.”

“Whatever you say, Shawn Katz.” Terry stood up and started coming toward me. Just then Janice came in with a metal tray that held a teapot and a steaming mug and came to an abrupt stop. “You didn’t think we’d find out?”

Janice froze, the tea kettle chattering on the shaking tray.

“See that, Shawn? Everyone here is disgusted. In this business, Shawn, you have to play the game. You never got that. Sal does. I hate to admit it, but all of us here feel the same. We like Sal much better.’”

I looked at Janice. She didn’t say a word to deny it. And in that moment, I realized how much older she was now than the last time I’d set foot in this office. I began to realize just how deep my neglect had gone. I turned back to Terry and straightened my shoulders.

“So, what are you saying, you are just going to let him be Sal Driggs? I’m out?”

“The way I see it, he always was. The lawyers made it easy for us. Sal Driggs is his legal name. But you already knew that.”

“You can’t do this,” I said as a security guard grabbed my arm and began pulling me out the door.

“Can and did. Don’t ever set foot in here again. Your days of plagiarizing other people’s work are over. Our business is concluded.” Terry said, screaming and pounding his fists on the desk so hard that the kettle on the silver tray jumped.

***

As I was escorted through the lobby, I saw Alex in the ground level café, seated next to Ghost Sal. “Thanks a lot, Alex. Or should I call you Brutus?”

Alex said, “Don’t be so dramatic. You disappeared. Everyone just moved on. You know… they are clawing back some of my commissions. It’s a nightmare, what you’ve gotten me into.”

“You’re fired.”

Alex paused and shrugged.

“Good! I quit.”

“Don’t ever call me again.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Alex said. Then he turned to Ghost Sal and continued their conversation like I’d already been forgotten.

As I walked down Fifth Avenue with my entire life ripped out from under me, I realized that I never liked Alex. I couldn’t remember how the two of us ever got connected in the first place. He was like a used car salesman that didn’t like cars.

What were the chances I’d ever write again? Ever get a publisher to look at another manuscript? Rapidly approaching infinite zeros.

I walked until my feet hurt. I couldn’t work out how I’d done this to myself. Maybe when you neglect what you’ve earned, it disappears—and takes you with it.

I found myself on a park bench in Central Park. Back to the heart of the matrix. And I found myself laughing out loud and smiling at everyone in front of me enjoying the afternoon. Kids with kites. An impromptu softball game. A parade of runners. And thousands milling about enjoying the sights.

As unanchored as I felt, it was, after all, a perfect spring day.

***

After sitting for what seemed like hours, I noticed a kid under a tree reading a comic book. I hadn’t seen a kid reading a comic book in what felt like years.

I walked by and leaned down and asked, “What are you reading?”

The kid looked up like a dog trying to determine if it’s safe to eat some food out of a stranger’s hand. Then he started in, telling me about the hero of this comic and his origin story. And then he said the damndest thing, “Then after the accident, he left his old life behind and made up his mind to become the one who took down the bad guy.”

As I walked out of the park, I brushed off my shoulder and thought to myself, you were Sal Driggs. You wrote those books. You won those awards. And you can make up your mind to do it again. Besides, if this is what it took to get you out of hiding, then so be it.

I couldn’t keep the name, the fame, or the credit. But I could still write. And the words had always been the only thing that mattered.

And I thought, “Now what’s a good penname?”