"The Literati"

USA Today bestselling author Susan Coll is the author of eight novels, including The Literati, Real Life & Other Fictions, and Bookish People. Her other books include The Stager, Acceptance, Rockville Pike, and Karlmarx.com.

Coll applied the Page 69 Test to The Literati and reported the following:

On page 69 of The Literati, Clemi – the 26-year-old protagonist who has just begun a new job as the programs director of a troubled literary nonprofit --- is working with Skylar, the intern, to try to guess the passwords for the nonprofit’s bank accounts so that they can pay the caterer for the forthcoming awards gala. Once they succeed, the two-step verification number is sent to the landline, which serves as an example of how antiquated the systems are at WLNP---Washington Literary Nonprofit. The two women then discover that the accounts they have managed to access have essentially been drained.

Page 69 is dialogue driven, so it doesn’t provide much context, and yet it is a surprisingly useful microcosm of the book. The page captures the comically dysfunctional state of WLNP, and it also has Clemi sneezing, which is a nod to her cat allergies and another of the novel’s plot points.

As a bonus, the page opens with the sentence, “OMG, Bob’s your uncle,” which was a line that I wanted to work into the novel. Around the time that I was writing this book I heard someone use this phrase. I was unfamiliar with it at the time, but it is apparently a British expression that means something along the lines of “and there you have it.” Or in the book, I’ve just successfully just hacked my way into the bank account.

Visit Susan Coll's website.

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The Page 69 Test: Acceptance.

The Page 69 Test: Beach Week.

The Page 69 Test: The Stager.

The Page 69 Test: Real Life and Other Fictions.

--Marshal Zeringue