Being an author automatically came with a wide range of criticism. And Connor had heard it all.

And like any good self-hating artist, he had absorbed the nastiest pieces of criticism and made it part of his psyche. Some choice quotes included:

The protagonist is clearly a thinly-veiled self-insert of the author, and not even a compelling one.

A series of monologues in the guise of a fiction novel.

A cry for help if I ever saw one.

Both Connor White and his characters need to be introduced to the concept of therapy.

This book would severely depress me if it didn’t so colossally annoy me.

And so on and so forth. There was one particular incident, however, that always led the pack of insults, and it wasn’t even particularly compelling or well-phrased.

It was back in high school, when he had written a short story for his language class. His teacher had hated it, calling it “corny” and “cringeworthy”. She had despised it so much that she had actually read it out in front of the whole class, pointing out each flaw as she went on. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of his life, and the laughter often rang out in his ears whenever he was having a particularly low moment.

At the end of that class, the class bully had come up to his table, and, seeing his downcast face, had said, “Aw, don’t worry, you have daddy’s money, don’t you? Go wipe your tears with all those thick wads of cash he stole from other people. You can do anything you want with them. You just… can’t write. Hey, wait a second!” He had been struck by a wonderfully terrible idea. He called out to everyone and said, “Everyone, Connor White can’t write! Ha ha!” And then, to Connor’s horror, he had broken out into song, “Youuu can’t write, Con-nor White! Youuu can’t write, Connor White!”

Amidst the roaring laughter, other students had picked up the chant, and they punctuated with drumming on their desks. Connor had fled the classroom, the song chasing him ever since then. It had lodged itself permanently in his brain, and the drumming and crude, off-key singing, often randomly started playing in his head, like an earworm of self-hatred. Then…the self-hatred itself became the fuel. The inkwell of his soul was dark, and his pen was poison. All that blemished the page was pure hatred, and when people resonated with that hatred, it grew in power. There were some people who saw his work and loved it, and that was enough to fuel him, for a while. He had heard everything the critics said, and he pretended not to care about it.

The thing is, Connor thought he had heard it all, until he found out that someone had killed themselves because of his book. Talk about a scathing review.

Connor paced up and down the wooden floors of his apartment, head low, wringing his hands. Was it real? Really real? Had his work actually caused somebody to take their own life?

The thing was, Connor was fighting a losing battle. Even though he didn’t want to admit it, he knew this had always been a possibility. He had been warned of it, in fact.

At one of his book signings, an old, smiling, heavyset woman had approached him. He knew immediately that she was not a fan, because she looked too well-adjusted and cheerful to be one of his regular readers. She had told him with completely kind condescension that,

“My dear, why are you writing these kinds of books? You are so young! Too young to have just given up on life already! You should get a girlfriend, have fun, enjoy life! You are obviously going to feel alone if you keep writing about sadness and death! Write positive things, write about love and happiness! You know what’s always helped me? Getting a necklace with your birthstone and always keeping it near your heart. The positive vibrations will make you feel so much better!”

Connor, with his signature air of superiority, had simply given her a sardonic smile and told her that crystal healing was a load of crock, and that she should find a better hobby than pushing it onto people.

At that, the woman’s smile had been wiped, and she had stood with great dignity and said, “If you don’t stop for yourself, at least think of others. Just because you’ve given up doesn’t mean that others have. They’re still struggling, still fighting. They might be looking for hope and instead… find you. They might read this poison of yours and believe it, and then if they hurt themselves because of it, it will be on your conscience.”

She’d left before Connor could retort. He had always mocked her inside his head, had always thought of her contemptuously. But now, the secret fear behind that scorn was coming rushing to the surface: What if she was right?

Something in Connor answered immediately: She was right.

Connor, like a child plugging his ears with his fingers and screaming, “LA LA LA”, shook his head and immediately dismissed the thought. It’s not my fault he did it, he argued with himself. A book can’t make someone depressed. There’s a lot of external factors that go into making someone depressed, and there can never be just one thing.

A weary voice from inside him asked, What you’re saying is that he was already on the ledge and you just gave him a nice, little shove? And that’s completely fine, no problem?

Connor pushed his fingers in deeper and screamed even louder, until without even realising, he actually was screaming out loud, “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!” while his hand pounded on his head over and over.

Connor caught himself and stopped. He tried to calm himself down, his breaths coming in short bursts. He collapsed onto the couch and put his head in his hands. The attacks were coming more frequently and more violently. This new piece of information, it was just…it was just too much for him to handle. What was he supposed to do with it? Maybe it wasn’t “you can’t write Connor White” and instead “you shouldn’t write Connor White”. Did his writing kill someone? How was he supposed to live with it, if it was true? Was it true?

It’s true, the voice insisted.

Well, there was an easy way to find out. The girl…she had mentioned “the university”. There was only one university in town…

Connor stood up and made his way to the rotary telephone. He dialled 0 for operator and told her what he needed. He paced as far as the telephone cord would allow him to go, waiting for the switchboard operator to connect him. Soon, a weary male voice said, “Baronsville University, how can I help you?”

Connor froze, unable to speak now that he had gotten this far. What was he supposed to say?

“Is anyone there?”

Just as he sensed the man was about to hang up, Connor quickly mumbled, “Hello.”

“Yes, hello, how can I help you?” The weary voice repeated.

“Well…” Connor cleared his throat. “It’s about…Tom…” the last word was murmured, and he was sure the person on the other end of the line had not heard him.

But he had. His voice was hard, angry. “What are you, another one of those ghoulish journalists? I thought all of you had already picked the body clean of everything you could use. I told you, the university has no more comment, and we will not be answering any more questions. What do you want now?”

Connor felt like the room was rapidly running out of air. He didn’t have the courage to ask about the book, but a wild thought hit him, and he managed to say, ‘Actually, I’m just looking for his next of kin. Do you have their contact details?”

The man on the phone got even angrier. “As I’ve told you all before, he was estranged from his family and we actually don’t have a means of contacting them. We just know the place he was from.”

“Could you tell me the name, please?’ Connor didn’t know why he was asking this, but he knew it was important.

The man didn’t respond, and Connor’s voice got more desperate. “Please, I’m his friend. I…I knew him. He had left something important with me, and I want to give it back to his family. He never mentioned where he was from, and I just need to know that. I’ll do the rest. If I can find them, then I can also inform them of the tragedy that occurred, and the university will not have to spend more time or resources on that.”

The man was silent for a few seconds, and Connor could practically hear the wheels turning in his head. “It’s going to be hard for you to contact anybody there. We’ve tried, but it’s a small village, and I don’t know if they even have working phone lines. I can’t even find it on a bloody map. Maybe it doesn’t even exist. Might as well give you the name. Wait, I have it written down here somewhere.”

Connor listened intently and then repeated the name, “He used to live in a place called…Levion?”

Excerpted with permission from A Deadly Faith, Varun Gwalani, The Bombay Circle Press.

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