How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely

From the Publisher

"What Pete Tarslaw wants is simple enough: a realistic amount of fame that will open new avenues of sexual opportunity; the kind of financial comfort that will allow him to spend his life pursuing hobbies such as boating or skeet shooting at his stately home by the ocean or a scenic lake; and - perhaps mostly importantly - the chance to humiliate his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. This is the story of how he succeeds in getting it all, and what it costs him in the end." Narrated by an unlikely literary legend, How I Became A Famous Novelist pinballs from the post-college slums 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 horrifying, hilarious tale of how Pete's "pile of garbage" called The Tornado Ashes Club became the most talked about, blogged about, read, admired, and reviled novel in America will change everything you think you know about literature, appearance, truth, beauty, and those people out there, somewhere in America, who still care about books.

The Washington Post - Elinor Lipman

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 New York Times - Janet Maslin

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.

Publishers Weekly

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)

Joanna M. Burkhardt - Library Journal

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

Kirkus Reviews

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

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