Hit The Road, Mac

Writers are able to foster a sense of belief in their readers.

With the right collection of words, an author can make a reader suspend their instincts and inclinations to not believe whatever plot device or character quirk the writer has devised.

If you were on Twitter and found a tweet from @CormacCMcCarthy, you might allow yourself to believe that the reclusive writer had actually gotten himself a Twitter account.

Author Margaret Atwood believed it to be so.

Alas, all good fiction must come to an end, and the fake Cormac McCarthy has hit the road. Michael Crossan, an unpublished writer from bonnie Scotland, admitted that it was him who set up the account and started tweeting.

From the start, the account took off to a degree that Mr. Crossan never expected. He sent one tweet to Ms. Atwood, as Cormac McCarthy, and she excitedly proclaimed to all her followers that Cormac himself was out there in the Twitterverse. Then Twitter's own Jack Dorsey added further support, by proclaiming to the millions that the recluse was on Twitter and doesn't Twitter have all the great authors sending off those short bursts of characters.

All along, it was only Michael Crossan.

Three days into his literary exercise, he was found out and his Twitter feed is no more.

Mr. McCarthy's publisher has stated that the real author of The Road doesn't so much as own a computer. The man doesn't even write short stories, so to believe that he'd be tweeting is a bit ridiculous.

Pity Mr. Crossan hadn't taken a page from the Columbia College professor's on-line masquerade as the fake Rahm Emanuel during the Chicago mayoral race.

At least he played it for laughs.

And got a nice book deal out of his tweets.