Glynn, Jonny

PERSONAL:

Male.

CAREER:

Actor and writer. Has written for various television programs, plays, and films, and has acted with the Royal Shakespeare Company in its annual complete works of Shakespeare.

WRITINGS:

The Seven Days of Peter Crumb (novel), Harper Perennial (New York, NY), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jonny Glynn is a British actor and writer who has written both plays and screenplays. He has also performed as a cast member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in its yearlong performance of the complete works of William Shakespeare. Glynn is also the author of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb, his debut novel, which was published by Harper Perennial in 2007. Glynn successfully sold the book without the aid of an agent by simply submitting it to publishers. In unusual circumstances for the publishing industry, Glynn's manuscript was noticed by an editor who picked it up off the company "slush pile," a stack of material that arrives in a publisher's office unrequested, which generally contains manuscripts of lesser quality that are almost immediately rejected. This editor was not the only person to see the promise in Glynn's submission; The Seven Days of Peter Crumb has sold to a number of foreign markets to be published in translation.

In The Seven Days of Peter Crumb, Peter Crumb firmly believes that he only has one week to live and intends to commit suicide on the seventh day. Since he believes he will die soon, and that his actions in his remaining days will not have any long-term consequences, Crumb decides to do whatever he wishes. He completely lets go of any sense of guilt or morals and indulges in a week of pure destruction ruled by his inner desires. The result is a killing spree of unusual cruelty in which he murders his neighbors in gruesome ways and sexually assaults and dismembers people, performing his sexual fantasies on a series of prostitutes. Crumb, however, is not as immune from guilt as he anticipates, and so the reader is subjected to his internal arguments, the killer versus his morality; his personality for all intents and purposes splits along a moral divide. He narrates fantasies about his victims as he plans his crimes, the stream of his thoughts often interrupted by drug use and by random descriptions of other activities. The book, with its disturbing content and vivid depictions of violence, received a wide range of reactions from critics, some finding Glynn's writing extreme, others praising the instinctive nature of his story. Still other reviewers found the book to be a pale reproduction of Crime and Punishment. Danielle Trussoni, a contributor to the New York Times Book Review, called Glynn's book "gruesome, obscene and utterly disturbing," but concluded that "it is also absorbing and well written." A contributor to Publishers Weekly commented that "Glynn's visceral prose convinces, but the sell-by date on this novel passed long ago." Robert Collins, in a review for Time Out London Online, stated that "what Glynn excels at is smart, pungent descriptions amid the exuberant, sometimes exhausting narrative."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 15, 2007, Brad Hooper, review of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb, p. 31.

Bookseller, May 26, 2006, "Portobello Sells Rights in Unagented Book," author information, p. 15.

New York Times Book Review, February 17, 2008, Danielle Trussoni, "Everybody Hurts," review of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb, p. 11.

Publishers Weekly, October 15, 2007, review of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb, p. 38.

ONLINE

Genre Go Round Reviews Web log,http://genregoroundreviews.blogspot.com/ (January 5, 2008), Harriet Klausner, review of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb.

HarperCollins Web site,http://www.harpercollins.com/ (August 18, 2008), author profile.

Independent Online (London, England), http://www.independent.co.uk/ (April 27, 2008), Laurence Phelan, review of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb.

Time Out London Online,http://www.timeout.com/london/ (April 23, 2007), Robert Collins, review of The Seven Days of Peter Crumb.