Straight White Male
-
-
3.9 • 7 Ratings
-
-
- $15.99
Publisher Description
Kennedy Marr is a novelist from the old school. Irish, acerbic, and a borderline alcoholic and sex-addict, his mantra is drink hard, write hard and try to screw every woman you meet.
He’s writing film scripts in LA, fucking, drinking and insulting his way through Californian society, but also suffering from writers block and unpaid taxes. Then a solution presents itself – Marr is to be the unlikely recipient of the W. F. Bingham Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Modern Literature, an award worth half a million pounds. But it does not come without a price: he must spend a year teaching at the English university where his ex-wife and estranged daughter now reside.
As Kennedy acclimatises to the sleepy campus, inspiring revulsion and worship in equal measure, he’s forced to reconsider his precarious lifestyle. Incredible as it may seem, there might actually be a father and a teacher lurking inside this ‘preening, narcissistic, priapic, sociopath’. Or is there…
Straight White Male is a no-holds-barred look into the mid-life crisis and the contemporary male sexual psyche. It is a brilliant new satire from one of Britain’s sharpest writers.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As this boisterous novel from Scottish author Niven (Kill Your Friends) begins, once-promising Irish novelist Kennedy Marr is leading a life of excess in Hollywood, where he squanders his talent working on screenplays because they pay better than novels. Kennedy, burdened by overextended writing commitments and a $1.4 million tax debt, finds escape in the form of a literary grant offered by Deeping University in Warwickshire. But there's a catch: Kennedy must also lecture at the school, near the home of his ex-wife, Millie, and 16-year-old daughter, Robin. Kennedy tries to make a go at his new job and begins an affair with one of his students. But just when he thinks he's escaped Hollywood, a movie shoot at Pinewood Studios drags him back. And then there's the matter of his mother dying in an Irish hospital. With such a full plate, will Kennedy be able to see his way clear to a new life? Niven simultaneously satirizes Hollywood and academia and scores solid points against both. Although the story is rather predictable and Kennedy's last-ditch epiphany feels forced, readers looking for a ferociously funny read will enjoy his company.
