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Upon return from embedded duty in Iraq with a marines unit, Ayres, a British journalist, chronicles his brief visit to Los Angeles, the land of glam and glitz. This gonzo-influenced volume opens with Ayres (War Reporting for Cowards) getting the sultry once-over from a beauty in a white bikini at poolside, and everything goes wacky and downhill from there with a bogus assignment to cover singer Michael Jackson, his Neverland estate and his sleepovers. Ayres marvels at the perpetually sunny weather of "the sci-fi metropolis," and the Tinseltown crowd of "Beverly Hill princesses, plum-cheeked hedonists, journalists with notebooks and bad breath, fleets of android publicists, the rich, the very rich." Ayres makes note of this life of excess, eco disasters and obsession with physical perfection. Producing a topsy-turvy carnival ride of a book, Ayres knows how to find the laughs and fantasy in this accomplished satire of Los Angeles. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Ayres (War Reporting for Cowards) fancies himself the consummate outsider as a British journalist now living in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, what is supposed to be his witty and self-deprecating look at his life in LA is instead a chore to get through, offering outdated cultural insights (people post sex ads on Craigslist), obvious political observations (the Chinese government owns American bonds), and tired Los Angeles stereotypes (everyone eats alfalfa sprouts). Ayres does not live in the leisure economy, as implied. Instead, he maxes out his credit cards, leases a car he cannot afford, and buys an overpriced home with an overwhelming sense of guilt rather than enjoyment. Instead of a window on life in the leisure economy, Ayres shows us what it's like to be debt-ridden in Los Angeles during the housing bubble and subsequent crash. Ayres wants us to see him as funny and tragic, but he just comes across as tragic. Not recommended.
—Manya Shorr
1 Poolside at the Leisureplex 1
2 Early Symptoms 16
3 Tinned and Sweating on a Broken Conveyor Belt 21
4 Never-Never Land 38
5 The Desperate Period 48
6 Lacking Courage 60
7 Upgrade Everything 69
8 Ah-Ha Kwe-Ah Mac (The Place Where it Rains) 98
9 We Are liquid 113
10 Asteroids and Neptunians 128
11 Gone Native 148
12 The Best Sofa Bed in the World 160
13 Giant Depressed Squid 170
14 Mike's Thing 185
15 When Piggybacks Don't Fly 201
16 Walls of Glass 215
17 Hitting Nineteen 228
18 Reverse Millionaire 245
19 And the Lion Opens its Jaws 266
20 The White Room 285
Acknowledgments and Notes 298
Overview
Published to rave reviews and now available in paperback, Death by Leisure is the incisive, irreverent, and savagely funny story of British journalist Chris Ayres’s attempt to infiltrate the American leisure class (and find true love) in the credit-fueled years before the economic collapse. When the bubble bursts, however, Ayres must learn to live without the billionaire balls, supermodel girlfriends, foie gras pina coladas, and caviar facials to which he’s grown accustomed. Just like the rest of us, alas.