“Brilliant . . . How I Became a Famous Novelist is a cheeky book and a brave one, all but naming real-life literary emperors sans clothes. . . . I was sold and sold again . . . [by Hely’s] subtle zingers. . . . The cynicism is delicious, the humor never broad, with just enough modesty and conscience seeping into the story to make our con artist lovable. . . . 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 twenty years, but at this moment I’m hard-pressed to name it.”—The Washington Post
“Steve Hely needed to know how to write very well in order to write as miserably as he does in How I Became a Famous Novelist. In a satirical novel that is a gag-packed assault on fictitious best-selling fiction, Mr. Hely . . . takes aim at genre after genre and manages to savage them all. Without really straining credulity, [his] travels through the world of publishing become exuberantly farflung. Mr. Hely has deftly clobbered the popular-book business, [taking] aim at lucrative ‘tidy candy-packaged novels you wrapped up and gave as presents,’ the kinds of books that go ‘from store shelves to home shelves to used-book sales unread.’ His complaints about such books are very funny. They’d be even funnier if they weren’t true.”—The New York Times
“A savagely funny, well observed skewering of the current state of best-selling fiction of all genres: a surprisingly affectionate story of a confused life.”—NPR.org (“Three Books for the Contemplative Comic”)
“What makes this book especially funny and satisfying is that it lampoons an aspect of American culture that doesn't get parodied as often as others, such as film and television. The book industry is no less deserving. After all, this is a country that made The Bridges of Madison County and The Secret runaway bestsellers. . . . Hely has put together a book that so perfectly and hilariously skewers the publishing industry, it’s amazing that he could find anyone to print it. It’s time to prove we’re smarter than the book business thinks we are and make his novel as big a hit as the Da Vinci Code.”—The New York Post
“If this book doesn't make you laugh, you may need a new funny bone.”—People (4 stars)
“Hely’s story offers a pitch-perfect takeoff on the insipid conventions of the best-seller racks and combines the expected caustic wit with an unexpected depth of emotional insight.”—Austin American-Statesman (Summer Reading Pick)
“How I Became a Famous Novelist has a laugh-out-loud quotient inappropriately high for reading in public. [I] yukked so hard that yogurt shot out my nose.”— St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Hely has written a captivating novel about writing a bestselling novel, while doing as little work as possible. The fake New York Times bestseller list alone is worth the price of this book!”—Shelf Awareness
“A witty and urbane novel about, well, a guy . . . setting out to write the best-selling novel of all time, and lucky us, we get to go along for the ride.”—Cape Cod Times
“You’d have to be pretty cheeky to name your first book How I Became a Famous Novelist . . . [and] Steve Hely has as much cheek as Alvin and the rest of the Chipmunks.”— The New York Times Paper Cuts blog
“[A] penetrating satire.”—Huffington Post’s Best Books of 2009 Honorable Mention
“A funny, thought-provoking, cynical story about being successful for all the wrong reasons.”—Library Journal
“Biting, hilarious, and improbably affectionate.”—Publishers Weekly
“A hilarious send-up of literary pretensions and celebrity culture. . . . Will hit close to home for publishers, writers, and readers.”—USA Today
“The hilarity level of this book is not an idle threat. . . . No one connected to books—writers, writing teachers, lit agents, publishers, critics, book buyers—gets off unskewered by Hely’s rapier pen. But out of the irony emerges something that feels like genuine reverence for great books, and for those who write out of honesty. For fellow book lovers weary of tracking book sales trends, Hely’s warp-up might even feel like catharsis.”—Amazon.com (Best Books of July 2009)
“A satiric, facetious, and laugh-out-loud funny first novel.”—Kirkus (starred review)
"It may seem like an act of deep cynicism to name a biting satire of publishing, in which one of its would-be darlings exploits the industry’s weaknesses for fortune’s sake, as a standout in a year in which print media shed nearly 90,000 jobs. But only someone who loved books could lay bare the process by which college-application ghostwriter Pete Tarslaw sets out to write the James-Patterson-meets-Paulo-Coelho novel The Tornado Ashes Club, a nonsensical pastiche whose excerpts, along with fatuous blurbs and too-real-to-be-true bestseller lists, act as waystations on the way to Tarslaw’s rise and inevitable fall. Sucker-punching everyone from William Faulkner to Oprah, How I Became a Famous Novelist’s narrator would be despicable if he weren’t so self-aware, and his misguided conviction fuels a series of Swiftian encounters rounded out by a note-perfect ending affirming and smashing the brass ring he thought he was chasing all along." —A.V. Club
“It takes a very good writer to pull of a parody like this, and Hely is a very good writer. . . . A hilariously apt pastiche of our Oprah-fied fictional world . . . [that] gleefully decapitates not just an entire industry but an entire culture. What’s best about How I Became a Famous Novelist is that Hely is a superb mimic, changing (fictional) fictional styles at a page’s notice: He can do pastoral, he can do old-fashioned nostalgia, he can do pseudo-lit, he can do broken English. But most of all, he can do sharp and funny. All through the book, I kept imagining him writing a note-perfect parody and, as he did so, laughing convulsively. I certainly did. . . . Many novels claim to be very funny, though few genuinely are. How I Became a Famous Novelist is. Genuinely. Funny.”—Globe and Mail
Steve Hely needed to know how to write very well in order to write as miserably as he does in How I Became a Famous Novelist. In a satirical novel that is a gag-packed assault on fictitious best-selling fiction, Mr. Hely…takes aim at genre after genre and manages to savage them all…His complaints about such books are very funny. They'd be even funnier if they weren't true.
—The New York Times
The cynicism is delicious, the humor never broad, with just enough modesty and conscience seeping into the story to make our con artist lovable…Hely is a Harvard Lampoon alum, so his brashness doesn't surprise. What does surprise is this novel's moments of sweetness…I may have read a funnier book in the last 20 years, but at this moment I'm hard-pressed to name it.
—The Washington Post
Biting, hilarious and improbably affectionate, comedy writer Hely's debut skewers the literary world with a sendup of the quest to write the Great American Novel. Words are Pete Tarslaw's thing, and after watching a bestselling novelist prattle on about the truth, his "calling" and other ridiculous ideas on TV, Pete concludes that the sole way to save face at his ex-girlfriend's upcoming wedding is to become a famous novelist himself. His quest to construct a by-the-numbers bestseller is guided by rules like "At dull points include descriptions of delicious meals" and where to live ("An easy way to get credibility as an author is to live someplace rugged"), though the real adventure starts once he bags $15,000 for The Tornado Ashes Club: his dance card is full of one-night stands, dizzying meet-and-greets with Hollywood big shots and appearances at grad schools. Meanwhile, Pete senses his moral barometer plummet as his Amazon ranking rises. Granted, Hely's shooting at some pretty easy targets that have been hit before, but it's hard not to love the way he does it with such merciless zeal. (July)
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Pete Tarslaw wants to make a lot of money without working too hard, so he can live well, have a house with a great ocean view, and humiliate his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. Losing the marginally legal job he had provides incentive to take on the task of writing a best-selling novel. Approaching the job as a cynic, he researches what people like to read, selects the salient components (murder, mysterious missions, lyrical prose, scenes from places where lots of readers live, easy-to-describe landscapes), and writes his novel. His book is published, becomes popular, gains mixed reviews. In his television interview with an admiring reporter, he stuns the world by revealing his cynical approach to literature and accuses other best-selling authors of using the same tactic. Controversy erupts; book sales rise. Pete is then arrested for the work done at his previous job. More publicity creates more book sales. Pete then writes his memoir, receiving an enormous advance and attaining his dream. VERDICT Hely, a comedy writer for David Letterman and the Fox cartoon comedy American Dad and coauthor of The Ridiculous Race, slams the writing, publishing, bookselling, and book-reviewing world in a funny, thought-provoking, cynical story about being successful for all the wrong reasons.—Joanna M. Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
—Joanna M. Burkhardt
Masterly how-to advice from TV comedy writer Hely's fictional narrator about creating a bestseller-no, make that a "literary product."Hey, anybody can write a novel, right? That's the thought going through Pete Tarslaw's head when he reads about Preston Brooks' bestseller Kindness to Birds. Tarslaw's goals as a novelist can be reduced to a few simple wants: fame, money and getting a few hot chicks on the side. Tarslaw also has a more concrete goal-to humiliate his former girlfriend Polly at her wedding, upstaging her by arriving as a Famous Novelist. Although he sets to work avidly, keeping his eye on a few rules (abandon truth, do not waste energy making it a good book, at dull points include descriptions of delicious meals), he finds that writing a novel is hard work, and he doesn't quite know how to get going. "Do you just start writing sentences?" he says. "That seemed a bit rash." Fueled by an experimental pharmaceutical provided by his roommate, he manages to write his magnum opus, The Tornado Ashes Club. He eagerly plans to watch it rise meteorically on Amazon.com and even fantasizes laudatory reviews ("Love, loss, and the soul of truth are explored when a wrongly accused man goes on a road trip with his grandmother and a Mexican folksinger"). The reality, however, is somewhat different. As one respected reviewer comments, "It's much like a Las Vegas buffet: everything's there, but none of it's very good." Doesn't matter, though, for the novel becomes something of a cult hit, especially after our hero trashes Preston Brooks' reputation by accusing him of the very fault Tarslaw himself is guilty of: turning writing into a formulaic con game foisted on a naive andunsuspecting reading public. In a sobering moment, Brooks defends himself against Tarslaw's puerile comments. A satiric, facetious and laugh-out-loud funny first novel.Author tour to Boston, New York City, Los Angeles. Agent: Jay Mandel/William Morris Agency
