This is a review for the excellent book How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely (a writer for, among other things, 30 Rock and American Dad). I love this book. It's one of the best, cleverest and funniest I've read all year.
Original review found here: http://www.readings.com.au/review/how-i-became-a-famous-novelist-by-steve-hely
How I Became a Famous Novelist By Steve Hely.
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.
If you read that sentence and thought the words flowed like a freshly dipped brush painting an image on the canvas of your mind then Steve Hely’s How I Became a Famous Novelist is most definitely not for you.
Dissecting best sellers with the detached coldness of a serial killer no literary genre is safe from slacker Pete Tarslaw when he decides he will become a famous novelist in time to humiliate his ex-girlfriend at her wedding. Using the 12 (until now) unwritten Rules of Best Sellers including Rule 6: Evoke confusing sadness at the end; Rule 7: The prose should be lyrical; and (my personal favourite) Rule 9: At dull points include descriptions of delicious meals, Tarslaw succeeds in his quest. But when you create a novel by putting together pieces of other novels then you really should know (especially if you claim to be a fan of ‘real’ literature) that what you’re going to end up with is Frankenstein’s monster and that’s exactly what Tarslaw gets.
E.B White once said, “Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it”. Until How I Became a Famous Novelist the same cannot have been said about literature, there are whole genres and sub-genres of books analysing books about how to write books. Steve Hely, the Dexter Morgan of the publishing world has changed that, I can promise you, you will never be able to read a book the same way again. In fact, I’m issuing you a challenge. Read this book. Go on. I dare you.
