The Man Who Wrote the Book
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- £2.49
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- £2.49
Publisher Description
A hilarious, ingeniously conceived, sexy romp of a novel, The Man Who Wrote the Book is another triumph by novelist Erik Tarloff, author of the critically acclaimed national best-seller Face-Time.
Ezra Gordon's life is falling apart. His job as an underpaid literature professor at a small Baptist college in California is in jeopardy because he can't get his act together to write any articles for academic journals, he has a ferocious case of writer's block and hasn't written a poem in years, and he is in a lukewarm relationship with the icily disapproving Carol, daughter of the fearsome college trustee, the Reverend Dimsdale. And his doctor has just told him that, physically, at the age of 35, it's all downhill from here.
To escape a dreary spring break on campus, Ezra heads to Los Angeles to visit Isaac Schwimmer, an old college friend. There's nothing wrong with Isaac's life -- he's a fabulously successful publisher of pornographic books, his social life is a bachelor's fantasy, and he lives next door to a Penthouse model as smart as she is beautiful (well, almost). When Isaac proposes that Ezra write a dirty book for a little fast cash, Ezra takes him up on the offer. Little does he know that his book, Every Inch a Lady (by "E.A. Peau") will radically change his life, and throw the campus into chaos.
The Man Who Wrote the Book, while evoking great academic satires from authors like David Lodge and Kingsley Amis and inviting comparison to Philip Roth's sexy masterpiece Portnoy's Complaint, remains the unique vision of Erik Tarloff. With his singular blend of humor, sharp insight into human relations, and a poignant understanding of the human spirit, Erik has established himself as an engaging, provocative -- and extremely funny -- force in modern American literature.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The author of Face Time abandons the Beltway and sets his second novel in the seemingly pokier arena of academia. But in this entertaining, whimsical tale, the scholarly existence of literature professor Ezra Gordon is by no means free of chaos and surprises, as sex, secret identities and pornography encroach on and transform his life. The story begins on a downcast note, with Ezra in danger of losing his job at Beuhler, a tiny Baptist college, because he hasn't published articles in his field. His joyless relationship with the daughter of a college trustee is doomed; his doctor tells him he's going "downhill" physically, and he's broke. Depressed, Ezra calls his best friend from grad school, Isaac Schwimmer, who invites him to L.A. Isaac, who's a decadent and wealthy porn publisher, shows Ezra a hedonistic weekend involving rich food, excessive drinking, cigars, saunas and sex with a porn star. Ezra feels recklessly alive, and so when Isaac asks him to write a porn novel and cuts a generous check, Ezra agrees to create a dirty book under the pseudonym E.A. Peau. The book's unexpected success has him scrambling to keep his extracurricular project a secret. Irony increases when he learns that he's now the favorite writer of the unwitting prudes who would deny him tenure; it threatens overload when it's discovered that Peau's zip codes match those of Beuhler College and Ezra is made chairman of the investigative committee. Tarloff's brisk one-liners and graceful choreography of clashing personalities evidence his former occupation as a sitcom scriptwriter and happily contribute to this romp in its surge toward a fairy tale ending.
