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The Serialist
by
David Gordon
A DARK AND STYLISH PAGE-TURNER FROM A BOLD NEW VOICE IN FICTION
Harry Bloch is a struggling writer who pumps out pulpy serial novels—from vampire books to detective stories—under various pseudonyms. But his life begins to imitate his fiction when he agrees to ghostwrite the memoir of Darian Clay, New York City’s infamous Photo Killer. Soon, three young women turn up dead,
...morePaperback, 352 pages
Published
March 9th 2010
by Simon & Schuster
(first published March 1st 2010)
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I usually try to read the Edgar nominees for best first novel within the year of the award but had put this book off (it was nominated for 2010) because I frankly thought it would be pretentious literary fiction posing as a genre story so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. I do enjoy different and this book definitely was that and the narrative voice and dark humor really won me over. The only downside was the whole serial killer obligatory graphic violence thing.
The Serialist is one of the most unusual and entertaining books that I've read in a long time. The protagonist and narrator is Harry Bloch, an aspiring writer who barely eeks out a living by grinding out pulp novels in a variety of genres under various pseudonyms. One of his most successful is a vampire series that he writes under his mother's maiden name, Sybilline Lorindo-Gold. Harry gets his mom to pose for the author photo and then, when his mother dies, he has no choice but to don a wig, pu...more
非ＢＬ小説のミステリー系の本です。
新聞の書評に載っていたので、翻訳版を読みました。邦題は「二流小説家」
内容は、なかなか目新しくて面白かった。３．５☆か４☆をつけてもいいかも。
主人公は売れない中年の作家で、面白いのはその生活ぶりや作家活動の話が詳しく描かれていてリアルで（作家本人の実体験があるだけに）、それが話の展開に上手い味を加えてる。しかも、このヘタレ中年作家を支える女たちとの関係がユーモアや悲哀を感じさせてるのも良い（ヘタレ・オヤジ好きには美味しいキャラｖ）
話の本筋よりも、この主人公の作家生活の様子や作家として日常感じている気持ちや、生活のために書いたマニアックなエロやら吸血鬼ものやら探偵ものの作品の内容とかが描かれていて、読んでいて興味深くて面白かったし、アホな中学生相手の家庭教師のアルバイトの様子も面白かった。まだ売れていない作家志望の人が読むと共感すると思う。
でも、話の構成が実験的な部分もあって読みにくいし展開が遅い、それにミステリー事件としては猟奇風味だけど平凡な内容なので傑作とは言えない。でも、秀作でした。アメリカ探偵作家クラブ賞の最優秀新人賞候補になっただけはあると思え...more
新聞の書評に載っていたので、翻訳版を読みました。邦題は「二流小説家」
内容は、なかなか目新しくて面白かった。３．５☆か４☆をつけてもいいかも。
主人公は売れない中年の作家で、面白いのはその生活ぶりや作家活動の話が詳しく描かれていてリアルで（作家本人の実体験があるだけに）、それが話の展開に上手い味を加えてる。しかも、このヘタレ中年作家を支える女たちとの関係がユーモアや悲哀を感じさせてるのも良い（ヘタレ・オヤジ好きには美味しいキャラｖ）
話の本筋よりも、この主人公の作家生活の様子や作家として日常感じている気持ちや、生活のために書いたマニアックなエロやら吸血鬼ものやら探偵ものの作品の内容とかが描かれていて、読んでいて興味深くて面白かったし、アホな中学生相手の家庭教師のアルバイトの様子も面白かった。まだ売れていない作家志望の人が読むと共感すると思う。
でも、話の構成が実験的な部分もあって読みにくいし展開が遅い、それにミステリー事件としては猟奇風味だけど平凡な内容なので傑作とは言えない。でも、秀作でした。アメリカ探偵作家クラブ賞の最優秀新人賞候補になっただけはあると思え...more
Jun 11, 2011
Ms.pegasus
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
mystery lovers, readers looking for an unconventionally funny literary novel
Author David Gordon engages the reader as if demonstrating his prowess at seduction. It is a very literary seduction. He opens by confiding the importance of an attention-grabbing first sentence. Of course, he's already given us his first sentence, so its as if he's disclosing a new part of his personality when he unleashes an over the top new “first sentence.” THE SERIALIST is narrated in the first person. The author (in the character of Harry Bloch) is at times disingenuous, cheeky, self-mocki...more
People like David Gordon really annoy me. I can't believe he was able to produce a book like this on his first attempt. The main character is a lovable loser, content to waste his writing talent on producing serial science fiction novels, along with the occasional pornography just to balance it out. His latest hit is a series of novels about vampires, written under a fictitious name and wearing his dead mother's clothes for the author picture (I felt there was an implied dig at the new vampire c...more
Clever, but I thought the beginning was a slog. I put it down for over a week because I was bored, and when I finally picked it back up the real action started within three pages, and it was much better after that. On and off very smart, and I loved the section about how obsessive readers really are addicts:
"Why do we read? In the beginning, as children, why do we love the books we love? For most, I think, it's travel, a flight into adventures, into a dream that feels like our own. But for a fe...more
"Why do we read? In the beginning, as children, why do we love the books we love? For most, I think, it's travel, a flight into adventures, into a dream that feels like our own. But for a fe...more
This book was really just okay. I agree with posters below, we need half stars. I'd give this one a 2.5 if I could. A very interesting and unconventional start, but the rest of the book does not live up the beginning. I'll give the author credit for some above average character development, something I find sorely missing in novels these days, but the build up and conclusion fall flat. First off, this is the type of murder mystery where the protagonist has a sudden relevation of both who the kil...more
"It all began the morning when, dressed like my dead mother and accompanied by my fifteen-year-old schoolgirl business partner, I opened the letter from death row and discovered that a serial killer was my biggest fan."
That's the first sentence that David Gordon wanted to write in the Serialist. However, it followed a bunch of other sentences.
The Serialist is a fun read. Harry Bloch is a hack ghost writer. He writes cheap novels about vampires. Years ago he wrote the 'Slut Whisperer' column in R...more
That's the first sentence that David Gordon wanted to write in the Serialist. However, it followed a bunch of other sentences.
The Serialist is a fun read. Harry Bloch is a hack ghost writer. He writes cheap novels about vampires. Years ago he wrote the 'Slut Whisperer' column in R...more
I am done with The Serialist. A very weird novel. The first half of the book is expository, defining and fleshing out the protagonist and his offbeat business partner (a teenaged girl). Until I was halfway through the book was wondering why it was labeled "Adrenaline." Then I got to the reason. The second half takes off with the discovery of INCREDIBLY grisly murders and the subsequent investigation, culminating in the discovery of the weirdest murder duo I've ever heard of, but it doesn't end t...more
A very well-written crime novel with some fun interludes into serial adventure (including a spot-on parody of the John Norman 'Gor' series).
The story is fairly thin, but this feels conscious, a necessity of a novel, but not the focus. But for all the time spent on exposition and character, there is a distance that remains between the characters and the reader. We learn a lot, but we don't really dig that deep.
Some of this has to do with the fact that the main character (and quite possibly David...more
The story is fairly thin, but this feels conscious, a necessity of a novel, but not the focus. But for all the time spent on exposition and character, there is a distance that remains between the characters and the reader. We learn a lot, but we don't really dig that deep.
Some of this has to do with the fact that the main character (and quite possibly David...more
A serial killer, protesting his innocence, contacts a hack-writer of mediocre success to and proposes he write his story. The accused is nearing the death chamber, and seems to want the story told his way. The ghost writer, Henry Bloch, takes on the chore, and finds himself embroiled in the deaths of the women victims.
Other reviews here have outlined the plot pretty well, so I will only say that this book has some interesting twists and the author does a commendable job keeping the story fresh,...more
Other reviews here have outlined the plot pretty well, so I will only say that this book has some interesting twists and the author does a commendable job keeping the story fresh,...more
"The Serialist" by David Gordon has that classic mystery feel, but with a whole lot more going on. It has suspence, humor, and grisly horror all bound between the covers.
New York writer Harry Bloch makes his living penning genre fiction--vampire stories, urban crime novels, and pornography--all written under different names, never his own. When a convicted serial killer asks him to write his biography, Harry decides it could be just the thing to boost his career, after being convinced by his te...more
New York writer Harry Bloch makes his living penning genre fiction--vampire stories, urban crime novels, and pornography--all written under different names, never his own. When a convicted serial killer asks him to write his biography, Harry decides it could be just the thing to boost his career, after being convinced by his te...more
The Serialist is a fun read. Harry Bloch writes pulp novels, from porn to noir to urban to vampire, but the writing gig of a lifetime comes to him in the form of a serial killer on death row who entreats Bloch to ghostwrite his story. There's a weird condition for Bloch writing the book, but things just get weirder when women start dying in the signature style of the aforementioned serial killer, who is conveniently behind bars.
I laughed while reading this story (and the stories within the story...more
I laughed while reading this story (and the stories within the story...more
This audiobook is read by Bronson Pinchot and is the best audiobook I've ever listened to, mostly because BP is so very excellent at doing New Yorkers' voices. They're all pitch perfect and very funny and distinct. The book itself contains vignettes written in various styles because the main character is a writer of various types of genre fiction. I can't stop laughing even now when I think of the way Pinchot reads the chapters from the vampire novel, and in a chapter from a science fiction book...more
I picked this book up completely on a whim and I'm so glad that I did. It starts of disarmingly light and I was laughing out loud in parts, but then as the mystery starts to develop and the bodies start to drop, it gets deeper darker and really good. I did figure out the killer pretty early on, but nevertheless the plot threw in enough twists and turns after that to keep it interesting. But what makes this book so great is not the substandard murder mystery, but its clever narration which altern...more
Another quick read, but isn't that what pulp fiction should be? Gordon presents us with the story of a "ghost" writer. Although Harry Bloch has written a number of serial novels in at least three different genres he has never published anything under his own name. Is this his big chance?
Gordon writes in a style consistent with his character, turning out an interesting, sometimes fast-paced novel. Bloch, as the main character, seems real and likable. Other characters sometimes seem like they are...more
Gordon writes in a style consistent with his character, turning out an interesting, sometimes fast-paced novel. Bloch, as the main character, seems real and likable. Other characters sometimes seem like they are...more
When I read the description on the back, I was excited to read this book. I was not disappointed. Great mystery, great characters, overall great book. I even loved the inclusion of excerpts from the other books the narrator had written, and I kind of wanted to find out what happened in those stories. Some reviewers thought it was too gory and gross. Maybe I'm jaded by all the Stephen King books I've read, but I didn't think it was that bad. Even Tess Gerritsen and Karin Slaughter have written th...more
Mike also knows this author - I really liked the book. The writing style...or voice I guess...was a pretty ballsy choice, but I think the author pulled it off (but barely). The plot is pretty absurd, but I think it was intentional - shout out to pulp fiction. Main character is a kind of Seth Rogen-type, therefore hapless but inherently likeable. Extremely graphic crime scene descriptions - while a bit over the top - also seem to be intentional, again as though the author is going for a pulp feel...more
Gordon riffs on genre and literary novels in this tale of a writer (porn columns and pulp novels under various pseudonyms, including his mother's maiden name) who gets the ghostwriting offer of a lifetime - the true confession memoir of a convicted serial killer. Like all offers that sound too good to be true, this one comes with a few strings, some of which are hard for writer Harry Bloch to stomach. But stomach them he does in pursuit of fortune - only to find himself the leading suspect in a...more
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a meta-fictional murder mystery at times funny and at times very macabre but intriguing from beginning to end . . . the frame story (a hack novelist helping a death row serial killer write his memoirs) and the interspersed fragments of the hack novelist's stories (neo-gothic vampire tales, supernatural detective thrillers, and sci-fi erotica) with the narrator's (the hack novelist's) reflections on this novel and on literature in general: quite clever and witty . . . . makes for great reading on...more
I read this book in about 5.5 hours and quite enjoyed it. I do agree with another reviewer who said the book could have been "tighter," and the first half was much better than the second half, but it didn't manage to take away any of the book's fun or pleasure. I appreciated Gordon's insights on being a writer and being a reader, and I appreciated that he unabashedly and irreverently mocked most pop culture novels, not excepting the murder-mystery genre. All in all, a great first novel and I loo...more
The book started out like chick lit for mystery readers: slick, light and not very deep. Harry Bloch is a writer who (barely) makes a living writing series--sci-fi, vampyre novels, mysteries with a black detective, even pornography--none under his real name. Then he gets his big chance: to ghost-write a serial killer's story, an assignment that soon embroils him in a mystery of his own.
The book not only entertained me for a few hours, it also made me think about Life and Death and Art. No small...more
The book not only entertained me for a few hours, it also made me think about Life and Death and Art. No small...more
This book deserves at least 3.5 stars, but that's not an option. I "liked" it overall & "really liked" parts of it, but can't say I "really liked" the whole thing. It could have been slightly tighter in some areas, but that's what you get when you write a story as a first-person narrative from the point-of-view of a serial writer, right? The character MUST philosophize & analyze or else they don't seem authentic, right? Uh, right? All in all, it's an entertaining book, I'm glad I read it...more
This book started out really strong, and I was sure it would be a 5 star, but when it got about halfway, I started to lose interest. The main character is a writer, and he decides to coauthor a book with a serial killer. While he doing research for the book by meeting women who have written the killer letters, something awful starts to happen. I didn't particularly care for the main character, and I felt the plot was trying too hard to be shifty. Maybe I'm just not a mystery/murder story fan.
I very much wanted to love this book and how could I not? It had at least three things I adore: Jim Thompson novels, Prime Suspect, and Amtrak hot dogs. But, in the end the relentless sliding from humor to horrific violence was a little too much. Not too disturbing, that would be giving the author too much credit for a gimmick born of too much education on writing. It was just a sort of whipsawing that was slightly nauseating, like a roller coaster that's three minutes too long
This is a book about writing, serial killers, mysteries, trying to earn a living, seduction. Not my usual read, but my Kindle was not properly loaded when we went camping for the weekend. Greg had this book along and I found it to be very literary despite being about EVERYTHING. I would not recommend it (it's rated R, to my mind, for graphic murder details and lots of sex) but it is a page-turner and there were several quotes about writing and reading that I'd like to steal.
This was awful. It had so much promise, and I very nearly recommended it to a couple of people before I got very far it--it's funny, cutting, a satire of the postmodern novel while also being a bit of a postmodern novel. But then the murders start, and it's the most gruesome thing I have read in a long time. And in a way that sort of celebrates that gruesomeness. When I got to the chapter that began "The first thing I ever killed was a gerbil" I just wanted to put the damn thing down, but I fini...more
LOVED this book LOVED it. It was so freaking funny. Just unbelievably clever on so many levels, a snarky highbrow sense of humor, a silly lowbrow sense of humor.
I loved the silly excerpts from his trashy novels, loved his serious novelist ex, loved this book. It was full of in jokes for people who read, funny insights into literary pop culture
And, AND it was a decent mystery with a strong plot and decent characters. Write more books David Gordon!!!!
I loved the silly excerpts from his trashy novels, loved his serious novelist ex, loved this book. It was full of in jokes for people who read, funny insights into literary pop culture
And, AND it was a decent mystery with a strong plot and decent characters. Write more books David Gordon!!!!
enjoyed this rather gruesome murder mystery. I picked it up because the author is supposed to be the step dad of my daughters' friend, but I haven't confirmed that I read the right book. The narrative gets a little long sometimes, even though it was full of interesting ideas and good writing. I almost felt like there were three books going on at once, because there is a story within the story, then the main character's narrative.
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![The Serialist [With Earbuds] (Audio)](http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348763429s/8548678.jpg)
David Gordon was born in New York City. He attended Sarah Lawrence College and holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature and an MFA in Writing, both from Columbia University, and has worked in film, fashion, publishing, and pornography. His first novel, The Serialist, won the VCU/Cabell First Novel Award and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. His work has also appeared in The Paris Review,...more
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