Monday, October 11, 2004
Tearjerker
Tearjerker, by Daniel Hayes. ISBN 1555974090. "Until I bought one, I'd never touched a gun, never stood in front of a full-length mirror pointing a gun at myself. Bang, bang. Mine was a Magnum .357 purchased in New Jersey, much more handsome than I'd imagined a gun could be."
His writerly dreams of fame and recognition having stalled, Evan Ulmer takes matters into his own hands. He kidnaps a renowned editor, Robert Partnow, and cages him in a basement equipped with a TV, a treadmill, and a Porta-Potty. While Evan shares his sense of failure, Bob reveals his own unsavory secrets, and together they watch the media spin their situation into a lurid tale of abduction and infidelity. Blurring the boundaries between fiction and real life, cunning and sincerity, flirtation and true love, Tearjerker unfolds in startling directions that make the reader wonder along with Evan, "Was abduction a difficult and gutsy endeavor or, instead, the predictable last resort of the desperately stupid?" In this darkly humorous debut novel, Hayes explores the human reality behind the tabloid headlines and the pathos of failure and yearning in a culture of high-stakes celebrity.
Click here for an excerpt from the book
