LoveSick

Author: Jake Coburn

Editor: Speak

Year: 2005

It was definitely a compelling novel. A little awkward. Preface more enticing than back cover. Both provided below.

Back cover: Love, secrets...and consequences. Ted's drunk-driving accident has ruined his life. It cost him his basketball scholarship, ended his plans for college, and forced him into AA. But just when Ted has resigned himself to his new life, Michael appears. The wealthy father of a bulimic Manhattan righ girl has a tempting proposition. He has agreed to pay for Ted's college tuition. uite a generous offer, but there's one catch: Ted has to secretly keep tabs on his benefactor's daughter, Erica. A seemingly simple task, with only one minor problem: Ted never expected to fall in love.



Preface: I'm a slut for a good rumore. Two-timers. Welshed bets. Party brawls. I shut up and listen.
Last October, I'm halfway through a BLT when my friend starts rambling about this prep-school girl whose banker father paid all these people to spy on her--the works: e-mails, GPS, cell and credit-card records, kids in her dorm. Three months into the sting, she vanishes, and her father winds up in a Park Avenue hospital.
It takes me a week to find out a name, Erica Prakers, and another two to dig up an e-mail address. I still squirm every time I think about my stupid introductory message. Or maybe it's just her two-word reply: FUCK YOU. I send her three more e-mails, each a week apart and shorter than the last, but I never hear back. Then, two days into the New Year, EP231094@yahoo.com flashes onto my inbox.
jake- i needed a few weeks to check up on you (hope you don't mind). i read your novel. some parts were funny but it got a little whiny (no offense). if you're really serious about this book idea you should email ted. it was his story before it was mine and we both need to agree to make it your. anyway email me back at this yahoo address. had to chang accounts.
erica

Six months and three hundred and twenty-seven e-mails later, I'm sending Ted and Erica a first draft of their story. At times, it seems impossible that a shy two-guard from suburban Illinoishad pocketed an envelope filled with fifteen hundred dollars or that a New York City debutante had stolen a car. But I'll let Ted and Erica explain themselves on the ink.
What follows if a nonfiction novel, or a fictional expose, or maybe its just a love story. In most instances, real names and places hve been changed or deleted. Aside from the www.Highsmith.com e-mails, the writing in LoveSick is almost entirely my own. The best lines, of course, are theirs.

Jake Coburn
New York City

Rate: 9/10

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