Darryl Shelly's Blog - Posts Tagged "roman-a-clef"
The Hobbyist Book
Received my first blurb for the book:
"In painstakingly, painfully precise detail, Darryl Shelly’s The Hobbyist walks us through the mind and experiences of a young male sex addict roaming the streets of New York, with an inheritance to spare and seemingly every Asian Mamasan on speed dial. While siding with Shelly’s protagonist, Dash, is a tall order, every single detail rings true—from the way this character forms relationships (as they are) with a succession of prostitutes to the gluttonous pace of an addict with inner beast fully unleashed. What Jerry Stahl did for junkies and Bret Easton Ellis provided for serial killing bankers, Shelly has done for sex addicts. Simply put, The Hobbyist is impossible to put down. It’s also a disturbing and alas all too accurate depiction of the way many people today view sexuality. And for however much of a tidy conclusion this gripping debut novel comes to, The Hobbyist doesn’t tie its character’s addiction up with a pretty bow; recovery is explored but never embraced and the overall sense the reader is left with is that there’s much, much more to the story."
~ Anna David
Author of Party Girl and Bought
"In painstakingly, painfully precise detail, Darryl Shelly’s The Hobbyist walks us through the mind and experiences of a young male sex addict roaming the streets of New York, with an inheritance to spare and seemingly every Asian Mamasan on speed dial. While siding with Shelly’s protagonist, Dash, is a tall order, every single detail rings true—from the way this character forms relationships (as they are) with a succession of prostitutes to the gluttonous pace of an addict with inner beast fully unleashed. What Jerry Stahl did for junkies and Bret Easton Ellis provided for serial killing bankers, Shelly has done for sex addicts. Simply put, The Hobbyist is impossible to put down. It’s also a disturbing and alas all too accurate depiction of the way many people today view sexuality. And for however much of a tidy conclusion this gripping debut novel comes to, The Hobbyist doesn’t tie its character’s addiction up with a pretty bow; recovery is explored but never embraced and the overall sense the reader is left with is that there’s much, much more to the story."
~ Anna David
Author of Party Girl and Bought
