as a “dude” and a reader I find this a touch sad:
Exhibit A: Jonathan Tropper. You’ve probably never heard of him even though he’s optioned almost all of his novels to major Hollywood studios for millions of dollars. He’s still never cracked the bestseller list, but I don’t blame him. His second novel The Book of Joe was hilarious and should have appealed to men and women, but just look at this cover.
a little depressing that archetypal “dude lit” in the author’s opinon includes palahniuk and brett easton ellis, whose overall contributions (at least in palahniuk’s case) could be summed up as “torture porn chic.” still a fascinating window on how we sell books, and, indirectly, how authors sell themselves.
for what it’s worth, I carried roberto bolaño’s “2666” around everywhere - is he included in a hyperliterate sub-category of “dude lit” given his self-created outlaw past, a la hunter s. thompson? or am I just not “dude” enough to stop reading books? (maybe it’s the brutal fourth section of the novel, which featured grimly clinical descriptions of, you guessed it, terrible scenes of crime and torture.)
-found via susannah breslin, whose tumblr is here.
February 24, 2009, 10:52am Comments
