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22nd out of 43 books
—
11 voters
Manhattan Loverboy
Overly suspicious second novel from Arthur Nersesian, author of The Fuck-Up.
Nersesian's brilliant follow-up to his underground classic, The Fuck-Up, Manhattan Loverboyis paranoid delusion and fantastic comedy in the service of social realism. Updating the picaresque chronicles in L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz and Kafka's The Trial, MLB is the tale of an orphan whose only kn...more
Nersesian's brilliant follow-up to his underground classic, The Fuck-Up, Manhattan Loverboyis paranoid delusion and fantastic comedy in the service of social realism. Updating the picaresque chronicles in L. Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz and Kafka's The Trial, MLB is the tale of an orphan whose only kn...more
Paperback, 203 pages
Published
July 1st 2000
by Akashic Books
(first published April 24th 2000)
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experimental, deeply ironic, hipster novel about a guy in new york city and his adventures with sex and working for a global capitalist. it was insufferably misogynistic, and i still don't buy the basic assumption of much of hipster culture that irony is an adequate excuse for being offensive.
All right, well one should read a whole book before one opens one's big fat mouth.
So yes, in my preliminary review I said the book's developments were too outlandish for credulity. Let's just say without giving up a HUGE spoiler that there is reason for this: it all has a grand purpose, a grand design as it were. There was more than a decade ago a film called, "The Game"... this is all I will say.
So, for most of the way, Nersesian's "Manhattan Loverbody" seems to be several notches below his fam...more
So yes, in my preliminary review I said the book's developments were too outlandish for credulity. Let's just say without giving up a HUGE spoiler that there is reason for this: it all has a grand purpose, a grand design as it were. There was more than a decade ago a film called, "The Game"... this is all I will say.
So, for most of the way, Nersesian's "Manhattan Loverbody" seems to be several notches below his fam...more
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Not quite as realistic as his other books and not quite as surreal as The Swing Voter of Staten Island, this book is trippy and twisted in its own right, but at its heart there is a creative and wacky plot. Not the book to go to for sympathetic characters or redeeming qualities, but a fun read about either randomness of life or the meaning of life, depending on how you choose to perceive it. Nersesian doesn't create characters you'd wanna hang out with and you probably wouldn't want to live in h...more
i read this book tonight in 3 hours... ( i am not sure but i think i had already read it, for lack of anything better to read i re-read it.) does that make sense?
ha!
this book had a alot of good points to it and i really couldn't figure out if it was trying to tell you to do something with you life or if doing nothing, if that is what you really want to do is actually doing something.....!
there were a few great lines in the book which i will loosely quote...'i knew alot of baggage came with bein...more
ha!
this book had a alot of good points to it and i really couldn't figure out if it was trying to tell you to do something with you life or if doing nothing, if that is what you really want to do is actually doing something.....!
there were a few great lines in the book which i will loosely quote...'i knew alot of baggage came with bein...more
I read this book in a matter of about 3-4 hours while traveling. I was happy I had it with me because it kept me entertained albeit a bit disturbed. I can't give this book more stars because it was like everything else that ends. Maybe its just me though becuase I hate the endings of everything most books, most movies, I think i would rather just stop reading then go through a poorly thrown together ending that seems like it was done minutes shy of some publishing deadline.
BUT I must say I love...more
BUT I must say I love...more
The references to Kafka, Bellow and Ballard all ring true, but Neresian has created one of the most vivid, surreal tales of the urban nightmare ever written. His finest book to date.
This was the first book I've read in this genre (which is what, I am still not sure). I almost gave up on it a handful of times, but it was just all so curious and totally bizarre.
I've read FUCK-UP and enjoyed it, but this one just bombed for me.
The character was pretty pathetic (in a generic and uninteresting way) and the story and writing, cliche. I just couldn't really root for the protagonist and as a result, didn't care too much what happened to him. (He seemed to not care much himself.) Moreover, you could see the twists a mile away (and early on in my opinion) and as a result, the book felt more like an obligation to get through after my interest waned.
Pros: There...more
The character was pretty pathetic (in a generic and uninteresting way) and the story and writing, cliche. I just couldn't really root for the protagonist and as a result, didn't care too much what happened to him. (He seemed to not care much himself.) Moreover, you could see the twists a mile away (and early on in my opinion) and as a result, the book felt more like an obligation to get through after my interest waned.
Pros: There...more
A little all over the place, and slow in some parts. But overall I liked it.
This is the first book by him I read, It was alright.
Pretty good early effort.
While I enjoyed this novel, I felt it had no direction whatsoever. I have always thought writers create some kind of outline before writing a novel. Or at least have an idea of where it will go and how it might end. But it seems like Arthur Nersesian just sat down one day without any clue what he was going to write and started typing away. Part of me liked this schizo free-form and part of me found it very frustrating.
It's been awhile since I read this. Its most redeeming element is that the protagonist's naivety was humorous. I pictured him as the boy in elementary school who always had snot running down his nose and papers falling out of notebooks that he carried in his hands rather than putting in his perfectly fine bookbag.
Excellent, madcap, intense, hilarious - unfortunately it falls apart completely at the end, as if the author merely wanted to get it over with. Recommended for fans of Hunter S. Thompson and Mark Leyner, but readers should be warned not to expect a satisfying conclusion.
Typical Nersessian, set in NYC with interesting characters and a twisting plot that circles and folds as the main character searches for himself in an almost surrealistic story that reminded me a little of Kafka's The Trial except Nersessian is a lot more fun.
It was an OK book. Not nearly as good as "The Fuck Up," but still a fairly entertaining read. The ending was a bit too much for me, shoving the entire story almost to a complete hault - but sitting back and thinking about it makes me laugh a little bit now.
this book may have just been written about me. this guy cant get a leg up on life! such a fast read and desperately funny. if you like this one check out another of his books written with the same type of desperate humor called "the fuck up"
Apr 08, 2007
kleeklaw
added it
oh yeah... i read this book because it was sitting on the floor at peets house and i was bored. took about eleven oldstyles to finish it, and now i have no idea what it was about.
a little slow toward the beginning of the book but nersessian manages to work in a message somehow.
I heart NY
May 24, 2013
Amanda Sevilla
added it
May 05, 2013
John Haslett
marked it as to-read
Apr 14, 2013
Courtney Ragland
marked it as to-read
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Arthur Nersesian is the author of eight novels, including The Fuck-Up (Akashic, 1997 & MTV Books/Simon & Schuster, 1999), Chinese Takeout (HarperCollins), Manhattan Loverboy (Akashic), Suicide Casanova (Akashic), dogrun (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster), and Unlubricated (HarperCollins). He is also the author of East Village Tetralogy, a collection of four plays. He lives in New York City.
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“The masses-I love em-they rush for red lights, risking everything to capture a few seconds, only to get home and waste their lives.”
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