The Fan

By Bob Randall

Book Overview

Once a famous movie star, Sally Ross is now nearing fifty and relegated to second-rate Broadway shows. But she still has her fans. One of them is her very biggest fan, and he would be willing to do anything for her - even kill. The Fan's first few letters are filled with love and admiration for his idol, but the tone soon changes and his messages become filled with deranged perversity and threats of violence. But Sally doesn't take them seriously - until it's too late. The tension mounts and the terror builds as The Fan moves closer and closer, leading up to a shocking finale.

By turns horrific and darkly humorous and one of the few modern novels written in epistolary format, Bob Randall's The Fan (1977) was a critical hit and a major bestseller on its initial publication and was adapted for a 1981 film starring Lauren Bacall and James Garner. This new edition, the first in decades, allows a new generation of readers to discover this outstanding, one-of-a-kind thriller."A virtuoso performance in suspense, full of menace and the threat of violence." - Los Angeles Times"One of the year's best constructed, panic-on-every-page thrillers." - Chicago Daily News"A real nail-biter ... works to perfection as it builds to a surprising climax ... the tension is killing." - UPI"Splendidly unnerving." - Saturday Review"Grotesque, funny, shocking tour de force ... The suspense increases and the ending is horrible. Fan-tastic." - Irish Times"The Fan should leave its audiences gasping." - Glamour"An essay in terror that creeps up as softly as a mugger wearing sneakers ... almost unbearable." - Cosmopolitan

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1960241443
• ISBN13: 9781960241443
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Valancourt Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.0" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

All The Heebie Jeebies That Are NOT In The Film Version....

Hopefully someone who is interested in or disappointed by the movie The Fan will stumble upon this review and take my advice. READ THE BOOK. The movie falls flat despite some good casting and fancy costumes but this book will not disappoint. It is a creepy, disturbing story of a fan who becomes obsessed with an actress. Sounds pretty run of the mill, but this book kept me up all night and gives me the willies just thinking about it. This author went over a line with this character and turned out something very haunting. People think the movie is dull and slow, and I agree, and I would love to have seen the movie go more the way the book does but on the other hand I am not sure I'd even WANT to see some of this stuff on film. It would be too much. Although it would have been amazing to see Michael Biehn given the opportunity to play the character the way it should have been played and I am sure he would have been unbelievable. But alas the movie studio/writers pussed out and went with safe, boring and unimaginative. Too bad but at least Randall's book is still in existence. Too bad most people will not read it but instead will see the movie--they are missing out! If you were disappointed in the movie The Fan, please just find a copy of the book and you will probably feel better because at least the movie will have led you to the book as it did me!

FAME FATAL E

The late Bob Randall has written a compelling story of an overzealous fan and the actress with whom he obsesses, to the point of cold-blooded murder. Told with a series of exchanged letters from different points of view, the plot moves along quite briskly while never loosing focus on characterization and style. The topic, avant-garde at the time, is still as fresh as it was more than twenty-five years ago. Original and narratively impressive, THE FAN should please those seeking suspense with an edge.-----Martin Boucher

Much More Than The Movie

If you were a fan of the movie, you should read this book! It is so much more than the movie. There is a lot more to the story that you can only get by reading the book! What is interesting and unusual to note, is that this book is composed of letters and telegrams the characters send to each other. I have never seen another book written this way. You get all the information of the story this way. This is impossible by todays standards to write in this fashion unless maybe the characters corresponded by e-mail? HMMMMMMMMMMMM.....

Carried by a kook

_The Fan_ is an epistolary novel chronicling a fan's descent into extreme nutliness and eventually violence, and the effect he has on the object of his affections - Sally Ross, Broadway star - and those around her. The story progresses much as you think it might, and the ending isn't anything unexpected, but where this book really shines is in characterising the obsessed fan. His exquisitely kooky personality comes through in every word he writes, in his casual arrogance, the way he puts some phrases in apostrophes as though they hadn't passed into common use hundreds of years ago.. he'd be perfectly at home on alt.usenet.kooks.