“Hey, man! Thanks for
transferring the £50. You want me to ramble on about your novel’s
kickassitude? Sure. It’s sitting on the bookcase, man. I have
priorities, like Franzen’s and DeLillo’s latest. I like you, man,
but I ain’t bumping those two LEGENDS for your little scribbling.
Anyway, use this: MJ ROCKS AND THIS IS MUCH BETTER THAN THAT JUVENILE
EFFORT WITH BELCH IN THE TITLE. PEACE.” — @davey46
“Mr. Nicholls, I have
read this latest novel submission with interest. Thank you for
sending the other manuscripts, Publish This You Cretins, Your
Publishing Firm is a Tide of Effluent, Everything You Publish
I Ignore on Principal. I will assign those to our intern readers.
I would like to make a personal comment: why the bitterness? This
novel is simply a brutal outpouring of personal grievances,
score-settling resentments, and misanthropic moans about the world’s
refusal to crown you a genius. I am afraid we cannot publish this.”
— A Man at Penguin Books
“Dear Mark, I have
had a look at some of your book now. I’m afraid that it isn’t my
thing. Good luck with it. […] Just to send you a few more words …
there were some things I liked in your MS, it’s just that a blurb
needs to be a real affirmation and I feel uneasy offering that here
I’m afraid. Please don’t be too disheartened and make sure you
keep writing.” — Alex Kovacs
“Mark. I’m sorry,
but I had to skip that nine-page list. It went on far too long. Why
didn’t you make it easier for the reader? I’m sorry, but I
couldn’t really understand what the book was about. Your father is
reading the Jack Reecher novels, why don’t you write something like
that?” — Mrs Nicholls
“This is a pleasant,
amusing, moving, and engaging novel written by a talented person.”
— CheapBlurbs4U
“A
ho-hum gallimaufry of stop-start narratives, banal tangents, and
boorish satirical pokes.” — Harold Sorrentino
“The
nadir of attempted comedy.” — Lydia Theroux
““This
novel is a crisp, buttery concoction that tantalises the mind . . . a
soft and mouthwatering crunch of pleasure tingling on the cortices
and yumming up the imagination.” — Gregg’s Bakers
“Labyrinthine
satiric masterpiece . . . destined for a place in the pantheon of
eternal pleasures” — M.J. Nicholls
Page
219:
I
am the author of this novel and I have lied to you, and taken
unhealthy pleasure in lying to you, and I will continue to lie to you
until you beg for more. I have lied about everything in my real life
(which does not exist—even as the “author” I am a construct
invented to represent aspects of the “real” author—however,
let’s not tangle ourselves in semantic or metaphysical notions. I
have lied my way through life, relishing in the saltiest untruths.
When people have asked me, “Is that soup made of string?”, I have
replied, “No. That soup is made of soup.” I have told many dirty,
unfair lies, and I have delighted in every one. The truth is a
pointless concept, invented by non-writers to keep the masses logical
and docile, to eliminate the pleasures of fiction-making. Punch the
truth hard.
