Cast your mind back to last month (it’s not far; it shouldn’t take too much energy) when J.J. Abrams stirred up discussion by revealing a mystery trailer for a new project. Well, now we know what it was all about, because the second part has come online (you can see the first at the bottom of the page). It’s for a new book he’s conceived called S.
While Abrams – who seems to be in some sort of unconscious competition with Guillermo del Toro to see who can have the most projects bubbling along at once – came up with the idea, the actual writing work was done by Doug Durst, since J.J. is slightly busy with that space opera thing he’s supposed to direct and the hundred other ideas his Bad Robots are working on.
S., apparently, is about the relationship between a grad student named Eric and a college senior named Jennifer. They trade notes in the margins of a (fictional) 1949 novel by a mysterious author named V.M. Straka. S. contains the novel within the novel; copious handwritten notes between Jennifer and Eric and dozens of pieces of ephemera between the pages like newspaper clippings and a napkin with a map drawn on it. (The book will come shrink-wrapped so none of this extra material falls out.)
“I could not be more excited for people to get their hands on this book,” Abrams tells EW. “It is difficult to describe because while it is a compelling mystery and love story, it is also much more than that. The work that everyone has done on S. is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Frankly, I’m amazed it was even possible to do this project at all.” The novel hits shelves (in the US, at least) on October 29.