I turned out of the introductions and took my first proper look at McTavish. The main thing that struck me was that he didn’t look how I’d expected. Of course, writers can look like anybody … but writers do have a look. … It’s all in the eyes … A writer’s eyes are wide and curious, taking the world and flipping it over, interrogating and interpreting it, regardless of whether it’s for vanity or creativity. But McTavish had none of that: his eyes were giving off the petulant clock-watching of a student waiting out a detention. It was jarring to see my favorite writer in this light.

-Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone on this Train is a Suspect, p. 68

Not sure I agree with this, but it’s a flattering thought.

It becomes funnier when you realize, as the book progresses, that the narrator is not really an experienced writer.