Great one-time authors

Some of those authors have a book that is so successful, they can never write another book in their lives.

Other writers fumble around trying to write that second great novel, but never achieve the goal.

Below is a list of my favourite books by authors who have written one great book.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen – One of my all-time favourite books – as well as one of the favourite books among my YTC students, Water for Elephants is the touching story of ninety-year-old Jacob Jankowski as he looks back on his life in the circus. Faced with the unexpected death of his parents, a penniless Jacob joins the circus only to find cruelty beyond his imagination.

Water for Elephants is a memorable love story and a moving story of facing adversity and protecting those you love. Sara Gruen has written other novels such as Riding Lessons, At the Water’s Edge and Ape House, but none of her novels ever measured up to Water for Elephants.

Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell – The sweeping saga of Katie Scarlett O’Hara and the vanishing South during the US Civil War, is still one of the best love stories ever written. After the novel’s publication, Mitchell spent the rest of her life trying to manage the tremendous success of her Pulitzer-prize-winning novel. Fans clamoured for a sequel, but Mitchell wouldn’t comply with their wishes.

Except for Lost Laysen, a novel Mitchell wrote when she was a teenager, Mitchell never wrote any other book. She was killed by a drunk driver while walking along the street with her husband.

Tsotsi by Athol Fugard – South African writer Athol Fugard is known for his television scripts and screenplays including Tsotsi, Gandhi and The Killing Fields.

Early television in the 1950s featured many of Fugard’s scripts, but Fugard wrote only one novel, Tsotsi, the story of a rough, gang member whose life changes when he finds an abandoned baby. Tsotsi, the man with no name, who is only referred to by the Afrikaans name for gang leader, is a remarkable story of compassion. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole – Few characters in literature can match Ignatius J Reilly described as a “huge, obese fractious, fastidious, latter day Gargantua, (and) Don Quixote of the French Quarter.” This rip-roaring tale of Ignatitus’s adventures is one of the funniest American novels. Tool’s mother published this brilliant piece of humour and satire after Tool committed suicide.

The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy – When Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for fiction in 1997 for her moving story of of twins living in south India and dealing with their mother’s choices in life, I couldn’t wait to read what she would write next.

Her novel, beautifully written, broke many rules about form and structure. Arundhati Roy certainly was an iconoclast.

It never crossed my mind that what appeared to be a semi-autobiographical novel featuring a twin who stops speaking, would turn out to be the only novel Roy would write.

Over the years, Arundhati Roy has written many essays, but no more fiction.

The Humming-Bird Tree by Ian McDonald – This coming of age story by Trinidadian author Ian McDonald is a Caribbean classic. Set in colonial times, The Humming-Bird Tree tells the story of Allen, a British boy and his relationship to two Indian children in the village.

This is the only novel written by McDonald, who is known for his poetry.

Sometimes it takes only one great novel to make an author’s career.