This is a story about a story that is based on a fictional true story. Makes sense? Okay, good.

Once upon a time, there was a group of friends in high school, but only two are really important. Herman and Laura orbit around one another, with heated glances and lots of adolescent male posturing. Scenes of this are interspersed with Laura's short "affair" with Jan Landzaat, one of their teachers. It's appalling, the responsibility for this situation the author puts on Laura. A seventeen year old involved with a thirty-something man who has, nebulous though it may seem, authority over her. After she ends it and gets together with Herman, the teacher mopes and becomes very awkward, culminating in an uncomfortable confrontation that ends with his disappearance. This is the story that our titular Mr. M bases his best-selling novel on. Dear Mr. M, however, opens with an adult Herman stalking the author years after its publication.

The most interesting thing about the changes in POV is being able to get a more rounded understanding of the characters - how they see themselves, how their significant others see them & how strangers (or their stalkers, as the case may be) see them. For example, Mr. M clearly sees himself as a man of great talent who has been, of late, underappreciated by his formerly enthusiastic audience. Ana, his much younger second wife, brings the perspective of his unsavory mannerisms (untidy drinking, racist & judgmental commentary on the people around them) while resigned to being groped and leered at by his aged contemporaries. Herman seems darkly amused by Mr. M's fumbling into his dotage, ironically commenting on Mr. M's lack of self-awareness.

The author tried so very hard to paint the portrait of Landzaat as a man who is desperately clutching at the quicksilver feelings his ill-conceived relationship had elicited in him. Were we supposed to pity him? Feel empathy for this pathetic mess? I hope not, as all my emotions were focused on being exceptionally grossed out. In the end, I was not at all upset when

Landzaat approached Mr. M secretly after the publication of his book and was subsequently murdered to maintain, uh, artistic integrity.

Alls well that ends well, in my opinion.