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The Royal Nonesuch: Or, What Will I Do When…
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The Royal Nonesuch: Or, What Will I Do When I Grow Up? (edition 2007)

by Glasgow Phillips

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"The hipster cultural economy of the dot-com boom is skewered in this hilarious coming-of-age memoir." --Publishers Weekly, starred review   Glasgow Phillips published his debut novel Tuscaloosa at the tender age of twenty-four. The results were disastrous: encouraging reviews, translations, a paperback sale, a film option, and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford. But over the next two years, as Phillips's second novel unraveled and freelance journalism assignments ended in humiliation, a horrible, secret thought took hold in him: perhaps, just possibly, whatever talent he had was of the kind that would never be more than promise.   Washed up as a "real" writer before he was thirty, Phillips went to Los Angeles and formed a company with his best childhood friend Jason McHugh, independent producer of Cannibal! The Musical and Orgazmo. The Royal Nonesuch is the story of Phillips's rollercoaster ride through the twisted world of underground Hollywood and the funhouse of the Internet during the boom. Phillips builds a hilarious and poignant memoir, in the tradition of Augusten Burroughs and Sean Wilsey, from tales of promise and failure, family and madness, friendship and redemption, fame and infamy, and good old-fashioned hustling. It is a remarkable book; a brilliant portrait of a generation in all its foolish glory.   "The best book I've read about being in your twenties and trying to figure out what to do with your life . . . Something this funny shouldn't also be this profound." --Matt Stone, cocreator of South Park… (more)
Member:mobamoba
Title:The Royal Nonesuch: Or, What Will I Do When I Grow Up?
Authors:Glasgow Phillips
Info:Grove Press, Black Cat (2007), Paperback, 384 pages
Collections:Unbought
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Tags:Biography

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The Royal Nonesuch: Or, What Will I Do When I Grow Up? by Glasgow Phillips

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In his frenzied autobiography, Marin County native Glasgow Phillips invites us to peek behind the curtain of the ridiculous freak show that was Hollywood during the dot-com boom and bust years. Most of us who weren’t part of the fools gold rush that closed the 20th-century had a feeling the whole thing was smoke and mirrors, but to take that ride with Phillips driving is still a mind-bending rush.

To his credit, Phillips paints an unvarnished self-portrait and I wasn’t sure that I liked him or even cared enough about what happened to him to read beyond the 100-page mark. On one level Royal Nonesuch is very much the story of a privileged screw-up who pisses away a sizable inheritance hanging out with his crazy friends. It does eventually become apparent, however, that there is something more going on with this guy.

At one point, Phillips seeks to point up the tawdry truths that lie beneath modern media’s love of death and destruction by producing an online millennial hoax involving an Antichrist-related snuff film. Phillips wrestles with his conscience, and his demons, while frantically scheming for funding and freaking out everyone that comes in contact with the project.

The looming collapse of the mini-media empire that Phillips and his partners have struggled to keep aloft comes at the same time his mother is diagnosed with cancer. The prospect of real loss puts the perceived gains and losses of the boom/bust into tight perspective and Phillips grows, matures, and finally becomes a fully realized person because of it. Good on him. ( )
  railarson | Jan 22, 2008 |
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"The hipster cultural economy of the dot-com boom is skewered in this hilarious coming-of-age memoir." --Publishers Weekly, starred review   Glasgow Phillips published his debut novel Tuscaloosa at the tender age of twenty-four. The results were disastrous: encouraging reviews, translations, a paperback sale, a film option, and a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford. But over the next two years, as Phillips's second novel unraveled and freelance journalism assignments ended in humiliation, a horrible, secret thought took hold in him: perhaps, just possibly, whatever talent he had was of the kind that would never be more than promise.   Washed up as a "real" writer before he was thirty, Phillips went to Los Angeles and formed a company with his best childhood friend Jason McHugh, independent producer of Cannibal! The Musical and Orgazmo. The Royal Nonesuch is the story of Phillips's rollercoaster ride through the twisted world of underground Hollywood and the funhouse of the Internet during the boom. Phillips builds a hilarious and poignant memoir, in the tradition of Augusten Burroughs and Sean Wilsey, from tales of promise and failure, family and madness, friendship and redemption, fame and infamy, and good old-fashioned hustling. It is a remarkable book; a brilliant portrait of a generation in all its foolish glory.   "The best book I've read about being in your twenties and trying to figure out what to do with your life . . . Something this funny shouldn't also be this profound." --Matt Stone, cocreator of South Park

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