Open Letter

 

On The Buonorotti Anagram:
An Open Letter to Dan Brown

By Tom Kush

© Copyright 2006

Dear Dan,

This is the first open letter I've ever written and I don't know how to begin. For example: I started to say "Dear Dan, Sorry I haven't written sooner."

But then I got to thinking: this is an open letter. Unlike a personal letter, it's something people don't like to receive-or you'd just send it straight to them in the first place.

It hit me like a bolt of lightning: Dan Brown doesn't care that I haven't written sooner.

In fact, Dan, you might wish I'd never written at all, once you've read the amazing tale I'm about to tell.

It's an adventure: a yarn full of twists and turns, mysterious figures, intrigues, revelations, and dangers. A fast-paced odyssey that carried me across the Northeastern U.S. on many forms of transportation, public and private.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In this open letter, I planned to clear the air about my upcoming #1 bestseller The Buonorotti Anagram.

I wanted to go on record saying that despite some superficial resemblances in the plot and storytelling, and the unfortunate similarity of the titles, my action-packed intellectual thriller has no connection whatever with your The Da Vinci Code.

Even the title is easily explained:

First: I chose the word "Anagram" because I enjoy the "Puns and Anagrams" puzzles in the Sunday Times Magazine. My wife Kate can support this, since I often read the funniest clue-answer combinations to her aloud. Next: since Michelangelo Buonorotti happens to be my second favorite painter, I used the name "Buonorotti." So it's like a puzzle:

Buonorotti + Anagram = Buonorotti Anagram

Dan, I know this may sound far-fetched.

You may think that only big-shot curators, at famous places like The Louvre art museum in Paris, even have a second-favorite painter.

Well, let me just say this: everything in this open letter is true.

Actually, let me also say this.

If, after you read the astonishing tale I'm about to tell, you are really and truly upset about Buonorotti Anagram, I would consider changing the title to The Buonorotti Pun.

Just please let me know before the book and the promotional materials go to press.

[Parts 1 through 5 of the open letter are in PDF format to preserve the author's fantastic formatting. You will need Adobe Acrobat Get Adobe Reader. This means if you can read Part IV, you already know one of the informational gems it contains.]

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

The Buonorotti Anagram [with additions by Steve Blanchard, not included in the Open Letter]

Web site by Steve at SBlanchard.us