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How I Became a Famous Novelist

by Steve Hely (Goodreads Author)

3.69 · rating details · 1,681 ratings · 529 reviews

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 most importantly the chance to humiliate his ex-girlfriend at her wedding....more

Paperback, 322 pages

Published July 8th 2009 by Grove/Atlantic, Inc. (first published June 25th 2009)

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Community Reviews

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Feb 08, 2009

Jessilynn rated it

Shelves: general-fiction

This book is perfect for the I-can't-believe-people-actually-bought-"Eat, Pray, Love"-crowd. Hely uses his main character, Pete Tarslaw, to point out that writers are just a bunch of actors trying to come up with a winning plot line, and snow their reading public with sentimental b.s. ...And as a reader, you are totally with him, because who hasn't thought to themselves, "ARGH! ANOTHER John Grisham book?! I can't believe he just uses the same formula over and over and still se...more

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Apr 08, 2010

Jennifer rated it

Shelves: humor, favorites

The Set-Up

To impress his former girlfriend at her upcoming wedding, Pete Tarslaw decides to become a famous novelist. Figuring it couldn't be all that hard, he spends an afternoon at a bookstore studying bestselling books. His studies reveal the keys to a successful book:

Rule 1: Abandon truth.
Rule 2: Write a popular book. Do not waste energy making it a good book.
Rule 3: Include nothing from my own life.
Rule 4: Must include a murder.
Rule 5: Must ...more

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Mar 22, 2011

Steve rated it

From what I can tell, slacker humor, as a sub-genre, is observant, slightly self-deprecating, very ironic, and inherently smart – all without appearing to try. This book’s got that and more. The most important part of the more is that it’s very, very funny. It’s a satirical look at the world of books: publishing, promotion, schlock, sensationalism, selling out, and above all, literary pretension. Pete decides that writing a bestseller will be the best way to save face, or to be in-your-face...moreFrom what I can tell, slacker humor, as a sub-genre, is observant, slightly self-deprecating, very ironic, and inherently smart – all without appearing to try. This book’s got that and more. The most important part of the more is that it’s very, very funny. It’s a satirical look at the world of books: publishing, promotion, schlock, sensationalism, selling out, and above all, literary pretension. Pete decides that writing a bestseller will be the best way to save face, or to be in-your-face, at his ex-girlfriend’s wedding. He gleans what he can from today’s popular choices, adopts a writer’s lifestyle (in Vermont, no less), and waits for the fame he’s convinced will soon come. I believe the appropriate trope is, “hilarity ensues”.

The thing about satire is that so much can go wrong. It can crane to silly extremes, it can be too obscure, it can miss the intended target, it can be tin-eared or just plain unfunny. But read this List of Bestsellers that Hely used to inspire Pete and see if you don’t agree that he got it just about right. (I still laugh at Guess - An economist analyzes the importance of random choices in everything from investments to choosing sushi to professional bull-riding. I’m glad I never got around to writing its equivalent only to see it parodied.)

The only reason I’m taking one star away is that he did, for a brief stretch, go a wee bit over the top. I know… it’s a satire… he’s allowed to indulge. I was just a little disappointed when his near perfect pitch seemed slightly sharp at some high-profile moments. Hely (and Pete) were soon back on track, though. The final irony was satisfying for its lack of cheek.

I’m asking you, with all the earnest intention my pre-slacking generation can claim, please read this book. It’s truly a good laugh. If you don’t believe me, wait for my wife to confirm. She’s doped up on Nyquil, but still chuckling at every page. I’m tempted to give back its missing star just for that.
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Dec 26, 2011

Luke Devenish rated it

Such a wicked piece of chicanery. Loved this. Very funny and very naughty. The spot-on lampooning of bestsellers and all the seemingly cynical formulae behind them was a scream, and all too horribly accurate - so much so, that I now feel positively enlightened! It's ruined them for me! The faux New York Times list was a riot. I wish I'd read this before I started writing books myself - I think I would have stolen a few of hero Pete's very well considered tips. His St Paul on the Road to Damascus...more

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Aug 08, 2009

Dan rated it

When I was eleven and saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" at the theater with my family, we all enjoyed it so much that when it ended we stayed in our seats until the next screening and watched it again. For the first time, I have done the equivalent with a novel -- I got to the last page and started right over. "How I Became a Famous Novelist" is the funniest, most enjoyable book I've read in a very long time.

Steve Hely's satire of the modern book-publishing industry i...more

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Mar 16, 2011

Brian rated it

Gimmick novel about gimmick novel-writing

Not a top recommendation, but a funny quick read; but be prepared to roll your eyes.

Steve Hely's novel is funny and entertaining, though I feel that the novel is far more autobiographical than he'd want to admit. I obviously can't know that for sure, but I get the feeling that he may have even originally planned to write his own novel and thought about what might sell. Giving up on that, he used his thoughts as fuel for his charact...more

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Nov 08, 2009

Emily rated it

Shelves: 2009

A former liberal-arts major and professional washout, Pete Tarslaw decides to write a bestselling novel in order to upstage his ex-girlfriend and pick up women at her wedding. Realizing that writing a plotty thriller is "exhausting," he decides to write a literary novel since "with literary fiction, you can just cover everything up with a coat of wordy spackle." He comes up with a book called "The Tornado Ashes Club," which is about man falsely accused of murder who...moreA former liberal-arts major and professional washout, Pete Tarslaw decides to write a bestselling novel in order to upstage his ex-girlfriend and pick up women at her wedding. Realizing that writing a plotty thriller is "exhausting," he decides to write a literary novel since "with literary fiction, you can just cover everything up with a coat of wordy spackle." He comes up with a book called "The Tornado Ashes Club," which is about man falsely accused of murder who drives off across America with his grandmother in order to find a tornado and release his grandfather's ashes into it (or something). The book also includes WWII flashbacks, researched from Wikipedia. We're given a brief excerpt of Tarslaw's prose:

In strewn banners that lay like streamers from a long ago parade, the sun's fading seraphim rays gleamed onto the hood of the old Ford and ribboned the steel with the meek orange of a June tomato straining at the vine. From the back seat, door open, her nimble fingers moved along the guitar like a weaver's on a loom. Stitching a song. The cloth she made was a cry of aching American chords, dreamlike warbles built to travel miles of lonesome road. They faded into the twilight, and Silas leaned back on the asphalt, as if to watch them drift into the Arkansas mist.

As someone who has read literally reams of similar drivel, I found Hely's observations about how to write a bestselling literary novel (based on insights gleaned from a spot-on satire of the NYT bestseller list) absolutely hilarious. Tarslaw's whole cynical attitude towards writing is also a funny contrast to the platitudes offered up in defense of literary fiction.

Writing a novel--actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs--is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.

The fun here is in Tarslaw's perverted yet totally accurate worldview; the plot seems more or less beside the point. If you have a publishing background or even just follow the NYT bestseller list, this book is not to be missed.(less)

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Aug 01, 2011

Kerry added it

This book made me laugh out loud, which is no mean trick. Written as a memoir of a fictional novelist, it manages to skewer the current state of American "literary" fiction while retaining some real heart. At first I thought it was going to be pure sardonic amusement, but in the end, Steve Hely managed to put a fork into the overstuffed turkey that is popular literature and publishing in the 21st century while simultaneously giving us all hope that real, talented authors are still out...more

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Sep 15, 2011

Barb rated it

easy, humorous, satirical look at what makes a best seller! excerpt explaining the rules:
Rule 1: Abandon truth.
Rule 2: Write a popular book. Do not waste energy making it a good book.
Rule 3: Include nothing from my own life.
Rule 4: Must include a murder.
Rule 5: Must include a club, secrets/mysterious missions, shy characters, characters whose lives are changed suddenly, surprising love affairs, women who've given up on love but turn out to be beautiful.
Rule 6: ...more

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Aug 26, 2011

Elizabeth added it · review of another edition

The bad [books]! These bad ones - terrible ones, ones that don’t even make sense and have adverbs everywhere and made-up words - they sell ten million copies and they make movies out of them. I used to cry every night, literally… because I thought I must be stupid. I had these dreams, every night, where everybody speaks some foreign language and I don’t know it.

I KNOW, RIGHT???

It is impossible to say how much I enjoyed this send-up of modern literary trends. I recommen...moreThe bad [books]! These bad ones - terrible ones, ones that don’t even make sense and have adverbs everywhere and made-up words - they sell ten million copies and they make movies out of them. I used to cry every night, literally… because I thought I must be stupid. I had these dreams, every night, where everybody speaks some foreign language and I don’t know it.

I KNOW, RIGHT???

It is impossible to say how much I enjoyed this send-up of modern literary trends. I recommend it for everyone in the publishing business. If it doesn’t make you laugh, you are probably making too much money.

It is true, though, that the book drags a bit toward the end, especially as the narrator, Pete Tarslaw, completes his spiral dive into becoming a complete and utter certified jerk. And considering that Pete *is* a certifiable jerk, I also feel Hely sold out a bit by having Pete decide “I wish I’d written something that good.” Yes, great literature is great, but there’s an uncomfortable amount of truth in Pete’s original, less popular view that “The financial success of an author is inversely proportional to the literary worth of the book.” It almost feels like Hely, the real author, is backpedalling, worrying that some of Pete’s ugliness will wash off on HIM. Nabokov is not Humbert, you know? I wish Hely had let his antihero stick to his guns with “THE EMPEROR IS NAKED” rather than, “well, the emperor’s not wearing any clothes at the moment, but he does have some REALLY NICE CLOTHES.”

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Writing a novel would be easy if it wasn’t for the frills. Take, for example, the scene early in The Tornado Ashes Club where Luke parachutes into Normandy a month before D-Day. The local resistance fighters find him, and together they celebrate his arrival over a bottle of calvados in a Bayeux root cellar.

This scene took me two days. Lots of Internet research was required to find out pesky details like what they drink in Normandy, and the name of a town, and what kind of parachute they used in the Second World War…

AHAHAHAHA MY COVER IS BLOWN, THIS IS MY LIFE

here’s me thinking I’m the only one who spends TWO HOURS getting the name of a single WEED right or trying to discover if continental Europe was on daylight saving time in 1943… I always think it must be so much easier for those of us making up our own magical vegetation.
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Aug 08, 2011

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: humour, mainstream

Ah, the great American novel. Many have tried, many have failed. History is littered with those who have come off a little worse for wear for having attempted such a thing: shattered marriages, flabby livers, unfortunate shotgun accidents and, well, plenty more flabby livers abound. Creating a novel that will touch the hearts of the everyman is a lofty goal, and it takes a certain amount of passion and skill, and a rather liberal addition of je ne sais qoi to succeed.

Unless you’re Pete...moreAh, the great American novel. Many have tried, many have failed. History is littered with those who have come off a little worse for wear for having attempted such a thing: shattered marriages, flabby livers, unfortunate shotgun accidents and, well, plenty more flabby livers abound. Creating a novel that will touch the hearts of the everyman is a lofty goal, and it takes a certain amount of passion and skill, and a rather liberal addition of je ne sais qoi to succeed.

Unless you’re Pete Tarslaw. Embittered by a soul-destroying career writing university entrance applications and shattered by the news of the upcoming marriage of his ex-girlfriend, Pete sets out to turn that shruggable “I dunno” element of Great Fiction into a paint-by-numbers affair–and a profitable one at that. The key elements of his plan for literary world domination? To show up smarmy pseudo-literary author Preston Brooks, and to show his ex exactly what she’s missing.

The planning component of Pete’s literary fervour involve stalking Borders patrons and flicking through the Lifestyle channel for tear-jerker topics (widows, WWII, and abandoned dogs), must-have settings (Vegas! France! Peru!), and elements required for bookclub consumption (clubs and societies! baking and muffins! a depressing and/or ambiguous ending!). It’s hilarious, but painfully so, because I’m quite sure than in the past year or so I’ve reviewed plenty of such books (high-concept YA and secret society thrillers I’m talking about you).

Hely continues his teeth-grittingly accurate depiction of the writing process (procrastination, junk food, and an over-reliance on non-prescription medication), and of course the publishing process (“if we’d turned down the books we’d accepted and accepted the ones we’d turned down we would probably be in the same situation”). It’s unflinchingly rude and cynical, and it’s a riot. But the novel really gets going when Pete’s novel starts to climb the Amazon charts–an occurrence that’s about as transparent as Ulysses. Pete’s unashamed hubris and his vindictive motivations start to give way under the combined pesky forces of insight and conscience, and he slowly begins to realise that he’s dressed about as appropriately as the proverbial emperor.

Like the hilarious Russell Wiley is Out to Lunch by Richard Hine (see my review), How I Became a Famous Novelist is a spot-on satire of both the publishing industry and those who populate it. Although Hely’s approach does occasionally veer more towards condemnation than critique, there’s more going on here than a railing-against-the-establishment furore. While no publishing stone remains untouched (book reviewers cop quite a clout!), there is a certain warmth here: the novel, for all its bilious ardour, is also a frank assessment of the power of story and the costs of cynically manipulating it for financial gain. Tarslaw may not be the most easy character with whom to sympathise, but the emphasis on situational (and systemic) humour will keep the reader chuckling away.(less)

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Jun 21, 2011

Helen (Helena/Nell) rated it

I bought this at an airport in a two for one deal. I bought it because I liked the idea of what it said on the back jacket" "A gleeful skewering of the publishing industry and every cliche of the writing life."

I like gleeful skewerings. But EVERY cliche? Maybe that was a wee bit too ambitious.

I think the book might have been very funny. It wasn't very funny. It had bits of wry and bits of amusing and bits of quite clever, but not very funny. Also I wasn't dead ...more

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Jan 11, 2011

Kater Cheek rated it

Good humor straddles that razor's edge between what we all know and what we dare not speak of. This novel started out balancing on that fine line very well. The protagonist, Pete Tarslaw decides to write a novel so he can become famous and show up his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. I found myself alternating between laughing uproariously and laughing uncomfortably. "Ha ha! He's making fun of writers and writing!" and then "Ouch. He's making fun of writers and writing." I ...more

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Nov 30, 2010

Doug rated it

How I Became a Famous Novelist is a tidy, and very funny, example of simultaneous multi-layer cake having/eating. Bitter Pete Tarslaw decides the best way to get back at his ex-girlfriend is to write a chart-topping novel. He inventories the best seller list, discards genre fiction as requiring too much actual work, and decides to write one of those "literary" bestsellers -- a treacly tearjerker ripe for transformation into an Oscar-bait flick. The sort of book you find under the the C...moreHow I Became a Famous Novelist is a tidy, and very funny, example of simultaneous multi-layer cake having/eating. Bitter Pete Tarslaw decides the best way to get back at his ex-girlfriend is to write a chart-topping novel. He inventories the best seller list, discards genre fiction as requiring too much actual work, and decides to write one of those "literary" bestsellers -- a treacly tearjerker ripe for transformation into an Oscar-bait flick. The sort of book you find under the the Christmas tree and unwrap with a sense of mounting dread, disappointment, and a sense of weary obligation. Tarslaw takes the David Allen Coe "perfect country song" approach -- "I was drunk the day my mom got out of prison." -- cobbles together something called The Tornado Ashes Club, and jumps on the rags/riches ride.

What's really impressive is that How I Became a Famous Novelist itself clearly follows a best-seller template, although pitched to a snarkier, more cynical audience segment and (thankfully) without The Tornado Ashes Club's overwrought prose.

Including multiple pages of deliberately bad parody prose and pulling the-joke-is-that-it's-not-a-joke are risky moves. What makes it work for me is that Hely, bless him, fully commits to his satire: he insults the three most significant audiences for his book: the editors and publishers who decided to buy it, journalists who discuss it, and ordinary people who read it. (A fourth audience, people who make film option decisions, gets a virtual pass, which would seem suspicious if I could envision How I Became a Famous Novelist filmed as anything other than a shoestring-budget indie quirkfest.) Tarslaw's a bit of a skeeze, but he's aware of his skeeziness and possibly trending toward future reduced skeeziness, which I thought kept him adequately sympathetic. And when Hely's authorial point of view shines through Tarslaw's voice, it just might, y'know, tug at your heartstrings, because, like all good satire, How I Became a Famous Novelist has a hot, angry core.
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Oct 24, 2010

Amy rated it

I laughed out loud many, many times during the course of this book. Who can't relate to a guy who wants to do something so profoundly awesome that it will ruin his ex-girlfriend's wedding? Who doesn't dream (even secretly) of being a rock star, a gold medalist, a hero of some sort, all for the glee of knowing that one's ex must then acknowledge "yeah, I broke up with that (rock star/gold medalist/hero). I'm an idiot."

This book takes some very good-natured jabs at the liter...more

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Aug 31, 2010

Spirit Staff rated it

Shelves: staff-picks

We chose this book as our first "pick" for the staff book club; as it turns out, the staff book club really only met for one month, so it was also our last "pick." All questions to our commitment and tenacity aside, this was a *perfect* choice! Here is all you really need to know about the plot: Peter Tarslaw, who has recently been laid off from his job forging students' college admissions essays, finds out his college sweetheart is getting married. Determined not to show ...more

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Aug 30, 2010

Richard rated it

For anyone who loves (to laugh at) books and the people who write them, HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST offers plenty to enjoy. In composing the fictional memoir of first-time novelist and literary scandal-monger Pete Tarslaw, comedy writer Steve Hely finds ways to gleefully skewer all forms of literary genre and pretension. The spoof New York Times Bestseller List (linked to in the Amazon Best of the Month Review above) is a classic in its own right and sets much of the tone for the whole book. ...more

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Jul 29, 2010

Judy rated it

Recommends it for: anyone in need of a laugh

Shelves: 21st-century-fiction

This one is truly funny. A spoof on the publishing industry that skewers everyone from the authors who write books intentionally following trends to create a blockbuster to the agents, publishers, reviewers and readers who encourage it all. Hely's main character, Pete Tarslaw, is your usual modern day slacker/anti-hero, with a twist. When he learns that the college girlfriend who dumped him in senior year is getting married, a desire for revenge gets him off the couch.

He "...more

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Feb 10, 2010

Kurtbg rated it

An author takes a poke and jab at the bidness of writing novels by analyzing the ingredients of best-sellers and crafting a hodge-podge novel to make it as a novelist (and show up an old flame).

The author simultaneously crafts a piece of marketing for himself by 1) doing the analysis and 2) peppering the book with creative story ideas and snippets of fictitious novels.

Every author has a style, but there's something about the same structure and format that gets recycled th...more

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Jan 25, 2010

David rated it

This was the funniest book I’ve read in a long while. Jilted Pete Tarslaw cooks up a plan to write a blockbuster novel, just to show the woman who got away. And heck, also to attract a fresh bevy of ardent bibliophiles, just like his adopted mentor, Preston Brooks, who is sort of a cross between Nicholas Sparks and Robert James Waller, and whose saccharine oeuvre includes “Kindness to Birds.” Tarslaw goes to work studying the bestseller lists and bookstore shelves, recording his astute and funny...more

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Jan 09, 2010

Jackie rated it

Very funny book! It's fiction, in case the title misleads you into thinking this is a memoir. It's about a young slacker guy (late 20s? early 30s? can't recall) who decides to become a famous literary novelist to show up his ex-girlfriend at her upcoming wedding. He studies the best-sellers list and comes up with some rules he follows to ensure his success, such as "At dull points include descriptions of delicious meals."
Sample funny passage to give you a sense of the narra...more

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Nov 22, 2009

Rainey rated it

Recommends it for: writers, readers, angry exes

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Steve Hely’s main character, Pete Tarslaw, is a failure. He’s done nothing since college except waste his life, and the book opens with him urinating into empty bottles of beer and scraping out a living writing bogus entrance essays for English-challenged college hopefuls. He hasn’t read a book in years. In “How I Became a Famous Novelist,” Tarslaw decides not only to turn his life around by writing a book, but to make a ton of money doing it by unlocking the tricks of successful novel writing...more

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Oct 07, 2009

Charlotte rated it

This was totally great. I loved it & laughed out loud in the airplane. It just perfectly skewers the world of publishing, both literary & popular (it is two worlds, or just one--ah ha!) and the main character Pete Tarslaw and his best-selling novel The Tornado Ashes Club are both hilarious. It's the kind of book you can't resist reading excerpts from to whomever you're with--much to my husband's dismay. Excerpt from the fake book within the book:
"In strewn banners that lay like stream...more

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Oct 02, 2009

Jake rated it

Usually, an entry into the 'light humor' category would send me running screaming into the night, frantically searching for the $14 I just pissed away. Christopher Moore, for instance, usually makes me want to place a shotgun in my mouth. And also to kill myself.

Steve Hely falls firmly into this category. However. Hely DOES take it upon himself to eviscerate pretty much every wildly successful American author who has no right to be successful. The Pattersons, Browns, Cornwells -- th...more

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Sep 28, 2009

Todd rated it

Shelves: kindle

Funny, funny novel that I impulsively bought on my Kindle after hearing an interview with the author on Fresh Air. [[Aside: I've said it before and I'll say it again: Terry Gross is the Virgil to my Dante, guiding me through America's Middlebrow Inferno.]]

This book is as premise heavy and improbable as an SNL sketch, but the big difference is that this novel works.

The plot is something to hang jokes on: An invitation to an ex-girlfriend's wedding spurs a desperate slacke...more

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Sep 24, 2009

Jenny rated it

Shelves: adult-humor, adult-lit-fic

Pete Tarslaw's college girlfriend broke up with him on graduation day, and, several years later, he's still not over it. So when he gets the email announcing that she's engaged, he realizes he can't go to the wedding and tell people that he writes college entrance essays for idiots for a living... So he decides that he's going to become a famous novelist. After analyzing the NYT bestseller lists, he creates a list of 16 rules for bestselling books and starts writing.

I made it 80 pag...more

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Aug 28, 2009

Carolyn rated it

"Writing a novel -- actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs -- is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV's so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it's damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit."
You can imagine that Pete Tarslaw is not interested in w...more

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Aug 13, 2009

Sarah rated it

This book was so unbelievably funny that I've been trying to think of ways to describe it for several days. Laugh-out-loud funny? Hysterical? I rolled around on the floor in glee while reading it? So aptly satirical that at times I was frightened? I'm not sure if I've gotten it right, so I'll just leave it at: damn funny.

If you have any familiarity with books that are on the bestseller list (Tom Clancy, Nora Roberts, Dan Brown, Sue Grafton) this novel will kill you. Or if you've eve...more

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Jul 22, 2009

David rated it

Shelves: read-in-2009

This is a sly, often hilarious, satirical takedown of the current publishing scene. An invitation to his former girl friend's wedding pushes Pete Tarslow into an existential funk. He convinces himself that the only way to avoid losing face at the wedding is to become a bestselling author. Based on his examination of the NY Times bestseller lists, he develops a set of rules for writing a blockbuster novel.
A few examples illustrate their tongue-in-cheek nature:
Rule 1. Abandon truth.
...moreThis is a sly, often hilarious, satirical takedown of the current publishing scene. An invitation to his former girl friend's wedding pushes Pete Tarslow into an existential funk. He convinces himself that the only way to avoid losing face at the wedding is to become a bestselling author. Based on his examination of the NY Times bestseller lists, he develops a set of rules for writing a blockbuster novel.
A few examples illustrate their tongue-in-cheek nature:
Rule 1. Abandon truth.
Rule 2. Write a popular book. Don't waste energy trying to make it good.
Rule 7. Prose should be lyrical.
Rule 9. At dull points include descriptions of delicious meals.
Rule 15. Must have obscure exotic locations.

The first half of the book is given over to Pete's development process for his masterwork, and is by far the best part. Particular highlights include Hely's wickedly imagined fake New York Times bestseller list:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pd...
The descriptions of his process are just as brilliantly on-target:

I took out the folded best-seller list from my pocket, this time looking at non-fiction. Anything people liked. I started writing. World War II. Football. America. The afterlife. Wise lessons learned. Food again. Sex. People accused of crimes they didn't commit. Pursuits. Las Vegas. Natural disasters - earthquakes, tornadoes etc. Gentle humor. Wise old people telling stories. Bargains. Hobos. Bounty hunters. Christmas.

From his outline to "The Tornado Ashes Club": As they dodge bounty hunters, we hear the tale that brought them together, a story of lost love that begins in the hobo camps of the Depression and on mud-stained college football fields, crisscrossing through the fury of World War II France to the islands of the Mediterranean and the kitchens and vineyards of Peru, a saga whose heartbreaking but uplifting end can only come in the swirl of a tornado, sweeping across the milkweed and the bluestem of the prairie on a Christmas morning.

Through a series of serendipitous coincidences, "The Tornado Ashes Club" actually achieves the blockbuster status Pete has dreamed of. The second half of the book describes what happens next. Although Hely has some fun with the arc of success and decline - set pieces on book fair panel discussions, the Hollywood screen treatment, the seriously high-minded writers' workshop, the high-profile TV interview meltdown, public excoriation in the blogosphere - he doesn't quite match the savage wit of the first half, so that the book coasts to a somewhat perfunctory conclusion.

In a previous life, Hely was a writer for David Letterman and Fox's "American Dad" series. His novel displays similar strengths and weaknesses to the humor of those shows -- a series of often very clever, funny premises for which the development is somewhat perfunctory, almost as if, after setting up his various gags, the author loses interest. The book is a little bloated at over 300 pages. But the first half contains enough hysterically funny material to justify your giving it a whirl.

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Jul 24, 2010

Renee rated it

A quick, funny, yet thoughtful book about what makes a book popular and what makes a book "good." Are the most popular books the most well-written? Or are they only the most digestible, exciting, pull-at-your-heartstrings books? Is writing a commerce or an art?

This book, which is not as serious as I'm making it sound, tells the rise and fall of one Pete Tarslaw, a young man in Boston who decides he's going to write a best-selling novel in order to become rich, buy a huge h...moreA quick, funny, yet thoughtful book about what makes a book popular and what makes a book "good." Are the most popular books the most well-written? Or are they only the most digestible, exciting, pull-at-your-heartstrings books? Is writing a commerce or an art?

This book, which is not as serious as I'm making it sound, tells the rise and fall of one Pete Tarslaw, a young man in Boston who decides he's going to write a best-selling novel in order to become rich, buy a huge house, quit working, and boast about himself at his ex-girlfriend's upcoming wedding. Using the current (but fictional) books on the NY Times Best Sellers list, he creates a list of important features for this novel, such as:

#4- Must include murder.

#5- Must include a club, secrets, mysterious missions, etc.

#6- Evoke confusing sadness at the end.

#9- At dull points include descriptions of delicious meals.

#12- Give readers versions of themselves, infused with extra awesomeness.

From this, he creates "The Tornado Ashes Club," which, through some luck, does indeed make him a famous novelist. And of course Pete learns something about literature in the process of all this.

One of the best things about the book, I think, is that it doesn't just attack all those authors (Nicholas Sparks, James Patterson, Patricia Cornwell, Mitch Albom, Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, etc.) who pump out tons of best-selling novels with overly sappy or action-packed plots, flat characters, and writing any English professor would classify as weak. Certainly it takes a hit at them, but it also points out the benefits of their writing style too. And it also rags on the earnest college students writing their little short stories filled with symbolism and unspoken epiphanies. The one book Pete Tarslaw truly loves, which seems to have everything needed for a great story- lovely writing, interesting characters, unique plot, subtlety- is one that isn't very popular at all (if I remember correctly . . . ). So no one's safe really.

I'd just like to hope that I'm somewhere in the middle of all that and that writing can be both entertaining and beautiful. Unfortunately, it's true that most of the money being made in the publishing world is by the writers of quick stories and not masterpieces. Also unfortunately, a large number of worthwhile books only make the bestsellers list because once Oprah declares a book good, it's like the word of God and her troops come rushing into bookstores in quest of it.

Anyway . . . This is definitely a good book. If I could give it 3 and a half stars, I would.
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“I try not to hate anybody. "Hate is a four-letter word," like the bumper sticker says. But I hate book reviewers.

Book reviewers are the most despicable, loathsome order of swine that ever rooted about the earth. They are sniveling, revolting creatures who feed their own appetites for bile by gnawing apart other people's work. They are human garbage. They all deserve to be struck down by awful diseases described in the most obscure dermatology journals.

Book reviewers live in tiny studios that stink of mothballs and rotting paper. Their breath reeks of stale coffee. From time to time they put on too-tight shirts and pants with buckles and shuffle out of their lairs to shove heaping mayonnaise-laden sandwiches into their faces, which are worn in to permanent snarls. Then they go back to their computers and with fat stubby fingers they hammer out "reviews." Periodically they are halted as they burst into porcine squeals, gleefully rejoicing in their cruelty.

Even when being "kindly," book reviewers reveal their true nature as condescending jerks. "We look forward to hearing more from the author," a book reviewer might say. The prissy tones sound like a second-grade piano teacher, offering you a piece of years-old strawberry hard candy and telling you to practice more.

But a bad book review is just disgusting.

Ask yourself: of all the jobs available to literate people, what monster chooses the job of "telling people how bad different books are"? What twisted fetishist chooses such a life?” — 6 people liked it

“Writing a novel— actually picking the words and filling in paragraphs— is a tremendous pain in the ass. Now that TV’s so good and the Internet is an endless forest of distraction, it’s damn near impossible. That should be taken into account when ranking the all-time greats. Somebody like Charles Dickens, for example, who had nothing better to do except eat mutton and attend public hangings, should get very little credit.” — 3 people liked it

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