How I Became A Famous Novelist (2009)

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Author: Steve Hely

Things You Might Like:

• Hilarious!
• It talks about how horrible the publishing industry is
• The bullet lists are great. Yes, bullet lists in a novel
• The characters are even more hilarious than the bullet lists

Things You Might Not Like:

• The lampooning of your favorite authors
• MFAs, especially, get a bad rap
• The relentless humor

Conclusion

Hely’s novel lampoons the publishing industry in a hilarious fashion, taking potshots at everyone from Tom Clancy to… literary types. What’s more, it’s really, really hard to say anything negative about the book.

5 out of 5 Best Selling Authors Burned in Effigy

Aaron Simon

***

As you’re probably aware, I have certain beefs with the literary establishment. In my mind, I see the constant tightening of publishing house budgets as a reflection of the increasing amount of bullcrap that they publish. I’ve always been told that readers can tell when a writer is being fake, and, yet, we’re getting a whole hell of a lot of debut fiction that seems to be reflections of what happens when an author goes through a reputable MFA program: a constant destruction of personalized writing in favor of a vague, semi-respectable ‘writerly’ style that involves a lesson kind of learned by the end of a novel. It’s pervasive and, as I’ve seen in magazines ranging from Kaleidotrope to McSweeney’s, sometimes the story suffers.

It’s homogenized the literary field so that, if you pick up a book written by an Iowa graduate, or a Cornell graduate, they’re probably going to sound the same. And let’s not beat around the bush, it’s done so that the author can win a prize and the program can get some more prestige by saying, ‘Yes, we have a Booker Prize-winner’ or whatever equivalent you’re going for. I’m not saying winning literary prizes is a bad thing. Instead, I’m saying that training writers to be prize-winning writers is a bad thing. It kills enjoyment and fosters a further belief that, unless you’re writing literary fiction, you’re wasting your time. And, instead of branching out and keeping interesting people in their stables, publishers are looking for brilliance defined by literary fiction.

In my own degree, in a school I wouldn’t quite call a Michigan or an Iowa, I have repeatedly been told that I should be writing with the Booker Prize in my mind. It’s a disparaging thought, and when I read how i became a famous novelist, my paranoia was confirmed.

The book follows Pete Tarslaw in his quest to humiliate his ex-girlfriend by becoming a literary novelist. It’s an ingenious tour de force and indictment of the modern publishing atmosphere, and no major author is safe from the attack. Tom Clancy, Janet Evanovich, Dan Brown, and regular-guy literati like whoever Preston Brooks represents all have their own straw men that Hely puts up for attack. That’s right, I’m admitting that all of the antagonists in this book are straw men. But, as I said in my Under the Dome review, you can do a lot more in humor novels than you can in serious books. If you were to create a straw man in a serious work, and then attack the person who the represent, you’d be booed off of your soapbox. However, as seen in Hely’s example, straw men make for some damn funny humor. For example, Nick Boyle, the stand-in for Tom Clancy, has the following thoughts about’ well, you’ll see:

• ON GOVERNMENT REGULATION: ‘This bar should have peanuts. Every bar in America ought to have peanuts. Why can’t the government regulate that? In the shell, too.’
• ON HOW HE CAME UP WITH HIS IDEA FOR TALON OF THE WARSHRIKE: ‘I went to Venice with my ex-wife. We were taking a night cruise, and looking back at the city, I thought, What if somebody blew this place up?’
• ON THE CURRENT STATE OF AMERICAN LETTERS: ‘Half the books these days are about smoking dope, masturbating, and crying about your girlfriend’
• ON WHAT IS THE BEST ‘KILLING PISTOL’: Smith & Wesson 640 (How I Became A Famous Novelist, pp. 180-81)

Every author Hely lampoons has their moments in here where they come across as, simultaneously, completely in it for the money and writing with more honesty than their literary counterparts. At one point, Tarslaw remarks – and this is paraphrasing – that, even though these guys are essentially schlockmeisters, they believe what they’re doing is honest, and that makes all the difference.

And it’s true. The recurring theme in the novel is that any form of fiction can be broken down into a checklist. Yes, my literati friends, even your beloved post-realist fiction can be deconstructed into a checklist that will earn it a coveted place on the NYT bestseller list, pumped up by MFA programs across the country. (Speaking of MFA programs, Tarslaw’s throwaway line is: ‘He’d [the leader of the Great Plains Writing Program] written a book of well-received short stories called Bird King, then settled down to teach the craft for fifteen years. He taught other people who wrote other well-received short stories.’)

Now, yes, I know, by the end of the novel, you have to wonder whether or not Tarslaw has changed his mind, and, chances are, you’ll see that a lot of the time, Tarslaw is being overly cynical. However, I maintain that even blind cynicism has at its base a very valid skepticism. In this case, it is the pretention of the literary establishment, its requirement that a writer must be self-serious and base their work in our world, not leaving it for too long, lest the focus on society be destroyed, which is the skepticism.

Hely, in writing the novel, creates a character that is so petulant, so immature, and such a prick, that it becomes hard not to like him and see that, really, he’s not that far off the mark. The novel is hilarious, readable, and thought-provoking. If you’re at all interested in the way the publishing industry works – as either a writer or someone who wants to go into the industry – the only way you can do a better job of learning is to be an intern at a house. The often-recurring lists of events will have you rolling in your seat, whether they’re about something as mundane as notes from a screenwriter or something that sounds like it’s ripped from a Tucker Maxx story.

I spent ten minutes trying to think of negatives, some way to justify not giving this a 5/5 (because I feel that should be the mark of a Truly Great Novel), but I kept hitting against a wall. Sure, there are reasons why it might not be given a 5/5, but, really, I think the rules of satire and humor (which you’d have to lie to say this isn’t) are so different that you can get away with having your narrator say stuff that’s completely wrong, because it’s not the author saying it, it’s the narrator. And, as is the case in this novel, the narrator is often either an idiot or an out-and-out prick. And well-done satire makes it clear that the narrator is one of those two things, and, by Jove, Hely sure as Hell makes it known that Tarslaw, often, is an overly cynical sort doing everything for the wrong reasons.

Really, one of the blurbs on the front of the book says it best: ‘I know that a novel is truly excellent if I feel obliged to set aside a long history of seething bitterness and call my ex-wife to tell her about it. After finishing this book, I prepared a gimlet for myself and dialed the hated digits. ‘Marguerite? It’s Ro. You must read How I Became a Fmous Novelist by Steve Hely. It was the first time we’d spoken in eight years’ Roland Campbell, editor, Campbell’s Review of Books.

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