Seth Greenland

I have now read all of Seth Greenland's novels, and boy, is he a terrific writer. This one has a bit of meandering plot - the first two thirds are a behind the scenes look at the Hollywood lives of a stand-up comic, itching for a comedy pilot, and a comedy show writer, who's been writing the coattails of a more successful writer but then gets his own shot - a multi-millionaire-dollar, multi-year development deal with a cable network. In the final third, it becomes a crime novel, but show more Greenland successfully strings it all together. What makes it all work is the strength of these two characters, as the novel shifts between their two points of view from chapter to chapter. Frank Bones, the comic, is like a white Richard Pryoer, a brilliant comic who's always living on the edge - doing too much drugs and even pulling out a gun and shooting at the ceiling during one of his shows. Lloyd, the writer, is a schmiel, who takes for granted his million-dollar deal because he really wants to be creating great art and is envious of the secretary who's penning a novel in her spare time. He's also henpecked at home with a wife who's busy climbing the Hollywood social ladder, and whose dream is to live in the toniest neighborhoods and be in with the "in-nest" Hollywood crowd. Frank and Lloyd knew each other in their early days in New York when Frank was just starting out and Lloyd was a reporter for an alternative newspaper. Their lives become intertwined again when they're both developing comedy pilots for a cable network. The Hollywood stuff is terrific - skewering the silliness of pitch sessions and showing how charitable causes simply serve as an outlet for these vain people to try to outdo each other. The final third raises the stakes on everything, but the novel stills remain true to the exploration of the arcs of these characters lives - as Frank pushes everything in his life to the outermost edges and beyond, and wannabe Lloyd trails along, wishing he had the chutzpah Frank does to live his life on his own terms. Along the way the sentences, observations, and humorous and biting satire Greenland offers make the novel, like his two others, one entertaining ride. show less

We are all just struggling through life. We face disappointments and loss and regrets. We do things that don't feed out souls, things that feed our bodies instead. But sometimes, in life, we find people who are our anchors. People who give our lives meaning, who contribute to our well being, and who face us undaunted by or unafraid of our meager, and ultimately unimportant, failings. These are the people we love. What if that person turned out to be the teenaged daughter of your boss or was show more the thirty year old employee of your father? What then? In Seth Greenland's smart new novel, I Regret Everything: A Love Story, this is who his characters are: characters who make us a little uncomfortable, characters who show us how to live life despite the disappointments, losses, and regrets.

Jeremy Best is a thirty year old lawyer specializing in trusts and estates. When he was younger and more idealistic, he didn't want to be a lawyer; he wanted to be a poet. And he is still a poet, having published several critically acclaimed poems as Jinx Bell, but even poets have to eat and lawyers certainly eat better than poets. Jeremy is alone in the world and has never managed to sustain a relationship in his life but he's a really decent, nice guy. Spaulding Simonson walks into his office one morning, having discovered his poet persona. She is the nineteen year old, troubled daughter of his boss. She is a child of privilege but missing a solid person in her life on whom she can depend. She has literary aspirations of her own and there's a touch of disguised hero worship in her initial actions with Jeremy. Telling any more would ruin the book.

Jeremy and Spaulding's interactions are tightly and beautifully written. Their growing relationship (and make no mistake, this is no romance novel) is complex and organic. The novel alternates between Jeremy and Spaulding's first person narration so that each stage of their slowly unfolding knowledge of the other is tempered by their own wry self-awareness, adding not only to the reader's understanding of the other character but also to the fullness of the narrating character. The novel is subtly funny and even when it could degenerate into the realm of the maudlin, it deftly avoids that trap. It is tender and poetic and inevitable and it captures so well the dichotomy of guilt and desire. This is a love story, a mortality play, and an intelligent examination of life. We all have regrets; it is a function of living, but reading this is not one of them. show less

Funny, quirky, and sexy in the down and out, let's climb that hill to the Shining City. This is one of those hate-to-love or love-to-hate books (much like the cover, it makes you self-conscious). Greenland tries very hard to make this book extreme, a walk on the X side of ugly America (which authors like the Barthelmes have explored for years, only without the shock and awe of tawdriness). Of course, I'm tempted to give an extra star for pushing boundaries, while simultaneously taking away a show more star for trying too hard; hence, they balance out. Nevertheless, Greenland succeeds quite well in making the unlovable and should-be-despicable acceptable and even adorable, in its poledancing way, and the crazy loser protag somehow heroic. Ironic as it is, Shining City leaves you wanting more -- more sex and degeneracy, actually, but in general more of it all. In that way we have a winner. Now if only we could work on removing that annoying ticket to Shinetopia clogging up the cover. show less

Greenland has a very funny premise here. When a criminal dies, he lives his “dry-cleaning business” to his long estranged brother. This business “opportunity” lands in his brother’s lap at the perfect time. Marcus Ripps, an average Joe, has just found out that the entire toy-manufacturing operation where’s he been a foreman for 15 years is being shipped to China. Without the inheritance from his brother Marcus would have two options – move his wife and 13-year-old son to China show more to run the plant there or face unemployment. The inherited drycleaning business seems to be a godsend, but Marcus quickly discovers the business is a front for a prostitution ring. Faced with limited options, Marcus decides to give being a pimp a try and Greenland milks every drop of humor there is to be found as this average Joe goes about trying to learn and manage the business – everything from interviewing girls to discover which perversions they’re willing to tolerate all the way to deciding what to do with the body of a John who dies in flagrante delicto. Marcus is determined to be a good guy pimp so he even establishes a 401(k) and health plan for his working girls. Originally, he tries to keep the business a secret from his wife, who has her own dying dress boutique, when she discovers what he’s up to, she helps take the business upscale and make better use of the internet. It’s all very funny and satirical. There are a number of surprise twists along the way. If you’re not squeamish about reading the details of all the various perversities everyday folk can get into, you’ll thoroughly enjoy it. What makes the book so unique and fun to read is that it doesn’t portray the seedy underbelly of a criminal activity, but instead stays grounded in the mundane realities of this ordinary guy’s attempts to run an illegal operation while trying to pay his mortgage and save up enough to throw his son a decent bar mitzvah. There are also enough surprise twists thrown in to keep it a page turner. I enjoyed it so much I’m going to read Greenland’s other novels. show less