Unfinished busi...

When the story never ends

We have unfinished business, you and me.
Let me tell you three tales of unfinished stories:

One that was never finished, one that says it’s finished but probably isn’t and one I wish had never been finished.

In the first one, Olive Schreiner, author of the STILL endlessly readable The Story of an African Farm (1883) died with an unfinished manuscript titled, From Man to Man.

These gorgeous classics are being re-released by Jonathan Ball this September

This story fascinates me because I have Unfinished Death Syndrome (UDS), an undiagnosed and undocumented disease, in which as soon as I get over half way through writing a novel I panic that I might die before finishing it. The equivalent of dying seconds before you say your famous last words.

Schreiner worked on From Man to Man for forty years and she didn’t even have the distraction of the internet as an excuse for never finishing it.

Her husband published a posthumous first edition in 1926. Building a tidy conclusion constructed entirely from his memory of what Schreiner had told him she was working on while alive.

A second edition was re-edited by Dorothy Driver and published by the University of Cape Town Press in 2015, offering another ending to the novel in Schreiner's own words, compiled through extensive research into Schreiner’s journals and letters. Driver also retained Schreiner’s husband’s version of the ending for context. And of course there’s a twist, because isn’t that what all good fiction needs? In Driver’s version her alternative ending is one that Schreiner had personally written about in a letter to a friend.

And now (🥁) Nobel Prize winner JM Coetzee 😳 has edited and adapted this book, writing a final chapter himself, which was translated by Antjie Krog 😳. Please forgive the name-dropping, the publishers have invoked publishing royalty on this one.

Although, is there a certain kind of irony in two men finishing a book called Man to Man, originally written by a famous female author? Is it the ultimate case of mansplaining, or do I have Too-Woke Sickness (TWS)? (Also an unofficial disorder.)

If you read Afrikaans you get to decide what lands best, there’s no talk of it coming out in English. Yet. But I’m hopeful.

Jonathan Ball Publishers, August 2026

Here’s the second tale of unfinished business, although this one is less corpsus-interuptus (terrible joke, I mean nobody died in it) it’s more coitus-enoughus-alreadus.

Jeffrey Archer has announced his final arrow.

Archer has topped bestseller lists globally for decades (over 300 million sold). I had to remind myself to breathe there for a moment, that’s a lot of books.

He’s the only author to have been a #1 bestseller in three categories; fiction, short stories AND non fiction. I’d forgotten but dude went to prison for four years in 2001 for perjury and perverting the course of justice. Managed to parlay that into a three book deal with his prison diaries 👏 nice job prisoner number FF8282.

And so his swan-song, Adam & Eve, will be released in October.
A mischievous twist that his very last book is named after the very first people?

Although do we really believe it’s his last? You know how at a concert the musicians will act like that was their last song, then leave the stage and pretend to decide to come back and play one last song (ONE LAST SONG, ONE LAST SONG!) just because you clapped and cheered so loudly? Watch this space, I think there might be that.

1918. As the guns of the Great War fall silent, two babies draw their first breath. Eve is the daughter of an Earl. Adam, a shepherd's son. From their first meeting they form a bond that neither privilege nor prejudice can break.

And now the book I wish the author had never finished, not because I wish he’d died before he finished writing it, obviously, I’m a monster, not a psychopath.

Charlotte Bauer and I have made little secret of the fact that we both really did not enjoy Theo of Boring Golden by Allen Levi.

But then so much of the world has absolutely loved it, and it’s sold over 2.5 MILLION copies and counting, so a) what do I know? and b) Levi is chasing the Archer.

Readers who’ve loved it say it was like a warm hug or calmness in a crazy world.

Readers who’ve hated it say it’s dull, privileged, and plotless. 🙋‍♀️

And of course I don’t really wish Levi had never finished it, maybe I just wish I’d never read it. But you can’t know what you don’t know. And I’m probably a little bitter and twisted; I’ve read so many brilliant books by incredible authors who never get one hundredth of the traction, reach or love this book has received and that seems unfair. But then publishing is nothing if not.

Feel free to bollock me in the comments if you loved Theo of Dullness beyond and want to defend it.

And that’s all I have to say about unfin

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This newsletter has not been approved by either JM Coetzee or Antjie Krog.