The Paperboy (novel)

The Paperboy is a 1995 novel published by American author Pete Dexter.

Plot summary

Hillary Van Wetter has been jailed for the murder of an unscrupulous local sheriff, Thurmond Call. Call had previously stomped Wetter's handcuffed cousin to death. Wetter is now on death row and awaiting execution. In prison Wetter receives correspondence from Charlotte Bless, a woman he has never met but who has fallen in love with him and is determined that he should be released and that they should marry.

Bless provokes immense sexual tension in any situation, given her beauty and presence. Bless attempts to prove Wetter's innocence by enlisting the support of two investigative reporters from a Miami newspaper hungry for a salacious story: Ambitious Yardley Acheman and naive, idealistic Ward James, who hails from the small town where Van Wetter is imprisoned and has mixed feelings about returning home.

The evidence against Wetter is inconsistent; and the two writers are confident that, if they can expose Wetter as a victim of redneck justice, their story will be a potential Pulitzer Prize winner. However, during the path of the prize, tricks of the journalist's trade are played, corners are cut, facts are fudged that later cause Jack James to do a little investigating for his own, which shows some small inconsistencies that had been ignored earlier.

Reception

The New York Times described the work as an "eerie and beautiful novel".^[1] The reviewer added that "the pacing works to the novel's advantage, forcing us to linger in its eerie emotional straits."^[2] Entertainment Weekly gave the novel a B+, describing it as "a wise and fascinating tale well told".^[3] The novel was also awarded the PEN Center USA literary award for fiction in 1996.^[4]

Film adaptation

Screen adaptation plans have been going on for over ten years between Dexter and Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar. Millennium Falcon picked up US distribution rights to the film at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.^[5] Lee Daniels stepped in as director ^[6] and the project began in summer 2011. Matthew McConaughey and Zac Efron star in the film, with Oscar winner Nicole Kidman taking on the role of Charlotte.^[7] The film was shown at the 2012 festival at Cannes.

References