Synopsis
A brilliant and wickedly comic novel about fame and its discontents, now available in paperback with a provocative essay by the author. Noel Hammersmith has two to bring his weight down to a slim 138 pounds and to be famous. Despite being a diet book editor and exercising regularly, he can't lose a pound, and his hilarious timidity insures that he has a hard time getting attention at all, let alone fame. To express his growing frustration, Noel begins to write angry letters-to Brooks Brothers when they discontinue his favorite shirt, and to Golden Rule Vitamins, who makes fake promises of easy weight loss. Coincidentally, bombs start exploding after each of his letters, the most notorious leaving a seven-year-old chess prodigy dead. When one of Noel's authors, "Che Guevera," claims to know where the mysterious bomber will strike next, Noel's world gets turned upside down...until a series of riotous and unexpected twists helps Noel attain his dreams, but at a strange price. Expertly skewering the cult of celebrity, this darkly comic satire is even more true-to-life than we might like.
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Review
Noel Hammersmith used to have dreams of fame as a playwright, not to mention personal happiness. But in 1984 his girlfriend has just decamped, he's putting on poundage by the day, and his literary success stems from the self-help tomes he edits at Acropolis Books--an outfit he can't help calling Necropolis. Yes, this New Yorker is a dab hand at acquiring and then whittling down titles such as The All-Poison Diet and the stroke-of-genius alphabet series (which includes H Is for Hemorrhoid and P Is for Premature Ejaculation). What he's not so good at is keeping his own weight--and consumerist obsessions--under control.
As the hero of Benjamin Cheever's Famous After Death becomes increasingly preoccupied with false advertising and corporate irresponsibility, he mounts a hilarious letter-writing campaign. Suffice it to say that the discontinuation of the Brooks Brothers Blue and the culinary degradation of Gerber Baby Food are very much on Noel's mind. But there are hints that he's involved in a deadlier sideline. Is he in fact the infamous Wordsworth Bomber, a man for whom "quality control was an issue worth killing people for"? Cheever's third novel is an artful mix of Noel's correspondence and journals. His transcriptions of his psychiatric visits alone are worth the price of admission. But this burlesque is also a serious--and seriously funny--examination of the distance between our values and the goods we seem to value more. Of course, in an age in which Hartz Mountain owns the Village Voice, Cheever's vision of Acropolis's takeover by "Pretty Kitty, Inc.," is less satirical than a slice of fin-de-siècle naturalism. --Kerry Fried
About the Author
Benjamin Cheever is the author of The Plagiarist and The Partisan (Editor's Choice of the New York Times Best Books of 1994). A former editor at Reader's Digest, he has written for the New York Times, The Nation, and The New Yorker. He edited The Letters of John Cheever. He lives in Pleasantville, New York.
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Famous after Death
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
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Condition: Good. Largeprint. Former library copy. Pages intact with minimal writing/highlighting. The binding may be loose and creased. Dust jackets/supplements are not included. Includes library markings. Stock photo provided. Product includes identifying sticker. Better World Books: Buy Books. Do Good. Seller Inventory # 3474062-75