It has been a great year for Australian books heading to Hollywood.

First, Jane Harper’s small-town murder mystery The Dry was scooped up by Reese Witherspoon’s production company.

Now, Nathan Besser’s mind-melting identity theft novel Man in the Corner is also set for the big screen treatment by The Mentalist star Simon Baker and his partner Rebecca Rigg.

It very nearly didn’t happen. Besser abandoned his first attempt at a novel, a coming-of-age story set between contemporary times and the 1950s, when his wife was pregnant with the first of their three children.

Besser with one of his three children.

“No publisher wanted the book and even if they had, writing in Australia isn’t a great money-spinner. I became disillusioned with the prospect of being a full-time writer with little-to-no income doing odd jobs and having a child,” he says.

Instead, Besser became something of a small business entrepreneur, getting involved in a series of companies including an early iteration of the restaurant delivery service that’s now known as Foodora and, randomly, buying into two women’s lingerie stores.

“That came about through an odd series of events and was a terrible business,” he laughs.

Besser’s book is out August 1.

The one thing he didn’t do was write, or even read, fiction. “I actually became very extreme once I made the decision I wasn’t going to write anymore,” he says. “I was very black and white about it.”

That might have been the end of it, but around five years later, not long after the birth of his second child, Besser impulsively grabbed a copy of J. M. Coetzee’s novel Elizabeth Costello on the way to join a friend on a short trip to Japan.

“It was a fraught decision because for me because as soon as I start reading something, I start thinking about my own ideas.”

Inspiration hit while waiting for his clothes to dry in a Tokyo laundromat, starting with the idea of main character David recovering from the effects of a rare brain disease that has him questioning every element of his rather cosy life, from his ownership of a reasonably successful waste disposal truck company to his relationship with wife Leah.

When Leah feels compelled to reveal her short dalliance with sex work it kicks into motion a strange cycle of events that leads to David meeting conman Ben Stribic. The elusive character easily sells David on an intricate identity theft scheme that will see him assume the identity of missing man Harry Herman Green.

Simon Baker and his partner, Rebecca Rigg, are taking Nathan Besser’s book to the big screen. Photo: Getty

Things get even odder when Green’s diaries reveal bizarre correlations with David’s life, picking at the edges of perceived reality. Pretty soon the scam endangers his young family.

“I guess I’ve made some pretty weird decisions in my life, so I know a little bit about that,” Besser laughs. “As I’m sure happens to a lot of people in midlife crisis, you get confronted with your mortality and that’s a reason to start reassessing everything.”

A mischievously smart novel, its complex plot hooks you in inexorably. Given the rise of domestic noir like Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, it’s no surprise Baker and Rigg optioned the book on seeing its first draft. Baker has just completed his directorial debut, an adaptation of Tim Winton’s Miles Franklin Award-winning novel Breath.

Already working on his next book, Besser won’t be quitting writing again any time soon. “I’m completely into it and at this stage have no plans to make another extreme decision. I have no plans to buy anymore underwear stores.”

Man in the Corner is published by Vintage Australia on August 1.