The Celebrity Novelist I Never Saw Coming

There are a lot of actors, singers and other performing artists that write novels. I've accepted that, and sometimes they don't do a bad job.

But sometimes, you just hear that someone has a novel coming out and it chills you to the very core. I had such an experience this afternoon.

I found out that Courtney Thorne-Smith has a novel called Outside In coming out in September.



Courtney Thorne-Smith?!?!? The woman who plays Jim Belushi's wife on According to Jim? Allison Parker from Melrose Place and the woman who thought playing the romantic lead in a movie starring Carrot Top was a good idea... wrote a novel?

I don't personally have anything against her mind you, as she seems like a genuinely pleasant woman to be around. I am just very surprised to be hearing this news.

Tell me if this story sounds familiar to anyone: Kate, a youngish actress with a cheating husband and a controlling mother finds herself feeling isolated and alone in the big Hollywood machine, but finds kinship and an emotional anchor in the guise of her personal make-up artist and they develop a deep and meaningful friendship.

Now for all I know it could be the most stunning fictionalized tell-all of the corrupt, media saturated excesses of Hollywood ever penned, but I doubt it.
Why do I doubt it? Because Gawker has snatched a few passages from the book and plunked them down for all to see. Read, enjoy and be forewarned.

And of course, it isn't about her at all... it is just some strange coincidence that both her and her protagonist have names that start with a c/k sound and hyphenated last names with a less common-more common surname pattern. Right.

Then again, maybe I shouldn't be knocking her work. After all, she has a novel being published and I don't. Of course, that hasn't stopped me in the past, now has it?

Tags: courtney thorne-smith, gawker, outside in, september, alison parker, melrose place, according to jim, jim belushi, novel, hollywood, celebrity, carrot top, chairman of the board, derivative work