THE DOCTOR IS IN

MOONDUST

Earlier this week, I attended a launch party for Susanne Dunlap's terrific new YA novel, In the Shadow of the Lamp. Because most of the guests were readers and/or writers, the discussion inevitably turned to the relative merits of paper-and-cloth and e-readers.

One writer brought up the irrational, but powerful, fear many of us harbor of being caught on a train or airplane with nothing to read.

"When we went on vacation last month," I said, "I loaded almost the entire oeuvre of Wilkie Collins onto my iPad. In the past, that would have meant an extra checked bag!"

The focus of the conversation shifted magically. There were cries of, "Oh, my God, Wilkie Collins!" "Don't you adore him?" "The Woman in White--wow. Just wow."

One guest said, "I've never even heard of this guy. Sounds like I should check him out. What's so great about him?"

"The books are impossible to put down," we told him, but beyond that, we were stumped. What IS so great about him?

Frankly, not much that I can articulate. His stories bump along over plotholes the size of Thorpe Ambrose. His exposition is clumsy, and his characters, while colorful and engaging, tend to be simplistic, to the point where I keep thinking that Armadale, which I'm reading now, could be subtitled Or: What If Little  Lord Fauntleroy Had Attained His Estate in Adulthood?

The only answer we were able to give was unsatisfactory, subjective: His books have a quality that compels you to keep reading.

As a social scientist, of course I want to isolate and study this quality; perhaps even to develop scales for "adhesion." If I could do that, maybe I could replicate the quality in my own work. But I imagine that it's akin to humor, or grace--it's just there, or not, and the closer you hold the magnifying glass, the more elusive it becomes.

Which is a shame, because I so want some of that moondust.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog, and she is a regular guest panelist on Litopia After Dark. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.