Column: Dear Nicholas, you're an ass

By Charles Austin

Published April 20, 2010

In an interview with USA Today last month, Nicholas Sparks proved he's not just a writer of repetitive, hackneyed romance novels. He's also a dick.

Sparks, the author of such masterpieces as "A Walk to Remember," "Dear John" and "The Notebook," told USA Today: "There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do."

He claims to write in the tradition of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway.

As far as I can discern, his only common ground with Shakespeare is they both rehash their plots over and over. Although where Shakespeare had a one-of-a-kind knack for wordplay and wit, Sparks has no defining unique aspect other than his unbridled arrogance.

Genius that he is, he recently wrote a novel and screenplay, "The Last Song," a story created with the approval of Disney as a vehicle for Miley Cyrus. He described the creation of "The Last Song" as "easy to write."

I might not have a Sparksian genius for well-written love stories, but I am a shrewd capitalist. If it's true Sparks has no contemporaries, there's a profit to be made as Sparks' one true competitor. But if I want to have any shot at surpassing his genius, I'll have to beat him at his own game. Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming novel, "The Genius," a fictional love story about the greatest author in the world, Nicholas Sparks, as he falls in love with 17-year-old Disney starlet Miley Cyrus (played by Selena Gomez in the film adaptation).

The last rays of the setting summer sun fell upon Miley's off-limits underage bosom as she sat down at her desk to write a letter to her estranged lover. She dipped her quill in her Disney Hannah Montana-brand sparkly purple ink and began to write.

Dear Nicholas,

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? No. It would be a discredit to your glorious literary legacy to defame your character with the words of inferior English poets whose works are largely irrelevant because your magnificent opus "The Notebook" was published and changed the English language as we know it.

Anyway, what's up? I'm just writing to let you know I have cancer. I know you're overseas fighting a war right now, and my father doesn't approve of our unconventional relationship because you're like twice my age and kind of a dick, but I just thought you should know the doctor said my terminal cancer is twice as deadly as normal terminal cancer.

I'm too feeble to deliver this letter to the mailbox myself, so I'll hand it to my father and he'll deliver it. But of course because he doesn't approve of our love he'll probably withhold the letter but lie and tell me he sent it. He's such a jerk!

I asked the doctor how long I have to live, and he said I'd probably die in six months and five days, which is the day before your tour of duty ends. You'll probably wonder why I never wrote to you while you were abroad, especially when my memory is the only thing that kept you going in the trenches. But my father will have a change of heart following my death, and you'll read my letters and learn the truth. I know that nothing can ever replace me, but at least you'll have your slew of successful novels to keep you company in mourning my demise.

Love,
Miley

P.S. I never finished reading "The Last Song," but I'm sure it was good._