Publish This Book
The Unbelievable True Story of How I Wrote, Sold and Published This Very Book
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- $21.99
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Ohio (Best Books of Summer 2018 Selection in Time, Vulture, and the New York Post) comes a brilliant, hilarious, and deeply touching memoir that blows the roof off the genre.
Fed up with the complicated quest of trying to get a book published, Stephen Markley decided to cut to the chase and simply write a memoir about trying to publish a book—this book, to be precise. It’s the most “meta” experiment he’s ever untaken, and like a Mobius strip in book form, the concept is circular, self-indulgent, and—maybe, possibly, hopefully—brilliant.
For fans of Dave Eggers and David Sedaris, Publish This Book is the modern day saga of an idealistic, ambitious, audacious, unyielding young writer who is tired of waiting his turn. Like any work that claims gleefully to be about nothing, it's really about pretty much everything—sex, drugs, politics, pop-culture, ex-girlfriends and sexy vampires. From the hope of early adulthood to the rage of life’s many (unavoidable) disappointments, it is a story of overcoming the obstacles and discovering a happy ending at last.
Most importantly, it’s a story that will inspire readers to find their true voice in their work and in their life.
Praise for Stephen Markley:
"Markley seems clever and funny, but it may be his "fire" that ultimately makes him worthwhile." — Literary Chicago
“Compelling, emotionally resonant passages . . ." — Publishers Weekly
"Markley is a knockout storyteller" — Kirkus Reviews
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It doesn t matter what problems you ve got with Markley s sprawling, self-referential account of his efforts to sell a book about his efforts to sell the book he s writing at that very moment he s already anticipated your criticisms, from the imperfect echoes of writers like Dave Eggers and Chuck Klosterman to the preponderance of dick jokes and other forms of frat boy humor. Of course, on a basic level, the book is a stupid idea, he admits early on; later, he concedes, I ve just been winging it, and it shows. He might have been better off cutting down some of the more self-indulgent sections, like a minihistory of his tenure as a political sex columnist for his college paper or an exploration of the fake memoir phenomenon featuring made-up conversations with Chicago drug dealers and underprivileged high school students. But there are compelling, emotionally resonant passages, too: a reflection on what it s like to shake loose the influence of a literary mentor, for example, or a best friend s realization of just how much an unplanned pregnancy has changed his life
