Brett Martin (1) (1972–)

If you wanted a book that epitomises unoriginal, lazy, MFA’d writing this is that book. It starts with an interesting snippet about the filming of 'The Sopranos' and you can almost hear Martin’s writing teacher saying to him. ‘brilliant Brett, now that’s what we call the hook…’ and then after two pages Martin’s dull, uninteresting prose with insights that could almost certainly be bettered by any viewer remorselessly follows. If you want his thesis, then look no further than the title. Who knew that HBO and AMC et al thought they might have found a formula? The real achievement is that he somehow manages to make a book out of it - 303 pages in fact. It may be that this book is one of the ‘smartest’ ever written about American TV as David Thomson (no less) gushes on the cover. What an indictment of that genre if so.… (more)