Smith, Scott 1965-

PERSONAL:

Born July 16, 1965, in Summit, NJ. Education: Earned M.F.A. from Columbia University in early 1990s; attended Dartmouth University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Long Island, NY. Agent—Gail Hochman, Brandt & Brandt, 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036.

CAREER:

Writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Received an Oscar nomination for best screenplay adaptation for A Simple Plan, 1998.

WRITINGS:

A Simple Plan, Knopf (New York, NY), 1993.

The Ruins, Knopf (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to the New Yorker and Bon Appetit.

ADAPTATIONS:

Wrote a screen adaptation of A Simple Plan directed by Sam Raimi, Paramount Pictures, 1998.

SIDELIGHTS:

Scott Smith's first novel, A Simple Plan, was published in 1993 to critical acclaim. A suspense thriller that explores moral fragility and the genesis of evil, it tells of three ordinary men in a small Ohio town who find their lives altered in a way that they never would have imagined. Hank Mitchell, a feed store accountant, his feckless brother Jacob, and Jacob's provincial buddy Lou are on their way to visit the graves of Jacob and Hank's parents. After encountering financial disaster on their farm, Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell were in a fatal car accident that the brothers believe was a double suicide. On the road through a woods, Jacob's dog jumps from the truck to chase a fox. The three men run after the canine and happen upon a plane that has crashed in dense trees. Inside is a dead pilot and a bag containing just over four million dollars in cash. Convinced the money was earned illegally, the trio argue among themselves until they settle upon the decision to keep the money. Hank stipulates that they cannot tell anyone of the money for six months to divert any suspicion. He also notes that if either of the other two comes looking for the money, he will burn the entire amount. After the waiting period, the money will be divided equally. As word of the money begins to leak, Hank finds himself losing all moral perspective and doing anything to hold on to it, including committing murder. As inappropriate as his actions seem, his motives are virtuous: He wants to be able to give his wife and daughter a good life. He eventually sees himself as a protector of his family as well as of Jacob and Lou.

Critics praised A Simple Plan for its tightly controlled style and for the author's decision not to romanticize decisions, good or bad, that the characters make. "In choosing to make his protagonist an ordinary middle-class man … Smith demonstrates the eerie ease with which the mundane can descend to the unthinkable," noted a reviewer in Publishers Weekly. Rosellen Brown, writing in the New York Times Book Review, noted that Hank "is a civilian, of course—he began as one of us—and his terrible logic leaves a reader torn between disgust and fascination." Brown also remarked: "A Simple Plan is so cunningly imagined that for the most part Mr. Smith drags us willingly through what in less deft hands could be a morally repugnant story." "A Simple Plan is a work of deceptive simplicity and singular power, carrying within it a moral that might well be a metaphor for a society in love with wretched excess," commented Robert Campbell in the Washington Post Book World.

Smith's follow-up effort, The Ruins, is another story about what can happen to ordinary people in unusual or extraordinary situations. The book follows two couples on a trip to Mexico, where they meet a German man who is seeking his brother who has disappeared in the jungle during an archeological dig. The group teams up with Mathias to help in his quest, and ends up finding more trouble than they anticipated. Writing for the New York Times Book Review online, Gary Kamiya compared The Ruins to Smith's earlier book, calling it "more explicitly and bloodcurdlingly horrific." He went on to add: "One of the creepy pleasures … is the way it combines genre clichés with the verisimilitude that is Smith's great gift." Gillian Flynn, in a review for Entertainment Weekly, wrote: "Smith has tapped into our anxieties about global warming, lethal weather, supergerms—our collective fear that nature is finally battling back—and given us a decidedly organic nightmare." Jamie Watson, reviewing for the School Library Journal, observed of the structure that "the book has no chapter breaks, which echoes the long and dreadful adventure. Even though only a few days pass, it feels much longer."