How I Became a Famous Novelist

Steve Hely

Jul 2009 · Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

About this ebook

This story of a slacker who sets out to take the book-publishing world by storm is “a hilarious send-up of literary pretensions and celebrity culture.” (USA Today).
 
Pete Tarslaw wants some fame and fortune and, perhaps most importantly, the chance to get back at his ex-girlfriend at her upcoming wedding. After listening to a vapid author prattling on during an interview, while nubile young women watch adoringly, he figures becoming a literary icon must be the easiest con game going . . .
 
This “gleeful skewering of the publishing industry and every cliché of the writing life” pinballs from the college town of Boston to the fear-drenched halls of Manhattan’s publishing houses, from the gloomy purity of Montana’s foremost writing workshop to the hedonistic hotel bars of the Sunset Strip (The New York Times Book Review). The tale of how Pete’s “pile of garbage” titled The Tornado Ashes Club became the most talked about, blogged about, admired, and reviled novel in America will change everything you think you know about literature, truth, beauty, and those people out there who actually still care about books.
 
“Nothing is sacred and all is skewered: critics, Hollywood, MFA programs, students, literary journals, panels, conferences and resulting hook-ups . . . I rooted for Pete, a scheming underachiever whom the late great humorist Max Shulman would have been proud to call his own. I may have read a funnier book in the last 20 years, but at this moment I’m hard-pressed to name it.” —Elinor Lipman, The Washington Post
 
“A pitch-perfect takeoff on the insipid conventions of the best-seller racks . . . caustic wit with an unexpected depth of emotional insight.” —Austin American-Statesman
 
“How I Became a Famous Novelist has a laugh-out-loud quotient inappropriately high for reading in public.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch
 

Ratings and reviews

Its sort of funny except for the parts where he whineslike a drama obsessed dingbat female a lot his,ex gf..RUINS the flow of the book. dl it's NOT funny just pathetic/way overdone .I agree with him about writers just churnin out book after book so that the character/mood,are so watered down/repetitive you quit reading .and weepy books by women (and n.sparks) YUK!! all cliched/copycat.As a female I will never read any book whose plot mimics Pete's ie 75%of all "novels"..whi h turn go moronic movies I wouldnt see for free.

Really enjoyed this. The author writes a great protagonist, who is disenchanted, cocky, greedy, talented, funny, and ultimately pretty cool.

About the author

Steve Hely was a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman and the FOX animated comedy American Dad. He is also coauthor of the comic travelogue The Ridiculous Race.