September 9th, 2009 / 3:55 pm
Web Hype
15 Rich-Ass Authors I’ve Suddenly Decided To Like
I really enjoyed reading Blake Butler’s list of “15 Towering Literary Figures,” and Christopher Higgs’ list of “15 Significant Contemporary Women Writers.” Both were great, and I disagreed vehemently with those who criticized Blake for not putting more non-Americans on his list, because we all know that Americans are the only people who are any good at anything. Sorry, foreign losers! I also disagreed with whoever called Christopher a self-hating sellout to the gynocracy, whatever that means. Actually, I guess I said that. To myself. Just now.
Anyway, there was one glaring problem with both lists: Very few of the writers mentioned are super fucking rich. So I decided to make a list of 15 authors who I am going to pretend to like from now on, in the hopes they will send me money. I mean, Brian Evenson is a good writer, but is Brian Evenson going to keep you in expensive hookers and 40-year-old Laphroaig? No, Brian Evenson is not. So have fun drinking store-brand sodas with Jorie Graham and Diane Williams, guys! I’ll be in Ibiza, pronouncing “Ibiza” pretentiously, with my 15 new best friends:
Dan Brown
John Grisham
Stephen King
Jodi Picoult
Joel Osteen
Dean Koontz
The Left Behind Dudes
Glenn Beck
Danielle Steel
The Twilight Lady
I Guess That Madea Guy Probably Wrote A Book, Oh Here It Is
Sue Grafton
The Executor Or Executrix Of Stieg Larsson’s Estate
I Guess Margaret Atwood Probably Does All Right
Rachael Ray
Tags: dan brown, left behind
this is why michael schaub gets paid the big giant commissions
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you won my heart with Laphroaig. That’s my favorite Scotch
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September 9th, 2009 / 10:42 pmMichael Schaub—
You have fine taste, my friend. Ever try Ardbeg? TRY ARDBEG
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yesssssss
the rachel ray made me laugh the hardest
can someone please get Michael an award of some sort? now?
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Dammit I laughed so hard.
The ‘Sue Grafton’ one just killed me.
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September 9th, 2009 / 4:49 pmCharles—
Yes, the Sue Grafton one is the best.
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September 9th, 2009 / 5:56 pmdavid erlewine—
thirded
great stuff
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That Madea guy is adapting For Colored Girls Who have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf for film…..fucking hell on earth
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September 9th, 2009 / 5:03 pmRoxane—
Ugh. I’m actually giving a presentation on that guy next month wherein I detail how much I loathe him. I’m going to pretend I didn’t just read what you wrote because he shouldn’t be allowed to even say the name of that choreopoem.
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September 9th, 2009 / 5:40 pmrion—
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/09/tyler-perry-out-of-drag-for-colored-girls.html
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September 9th, 2009 / 5:43 pmrion—
unbeweavable
September 9th, 2009 / 5:50 pmRoxane—
You have made me profoundly sad.
September 9th, 2009 / 5:58 pmdavid erlewine—
Tyler Perry makes me want to dress up in drag and act sassy and then talk subtext all fucking night long.
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September 10th, 2009 / 4:31 pmTim Jones-Yelvington—
tayari jones has been monitoring this…. it sounds like he might just be financing/producing, hopefully he won’t mess with shit creatively?
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im glad you included the visuals so i wouldnt have to even read their names
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I didn’t realize the Left Behind dudes were so smoking hot. Certainly gives new meaning to the title of that series.
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A+
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Oh my fucking funny. You should probably also try James Patterson–I read that he just signed a contract to shit out like, 47 more books before next Tuesday and they’ll cap all his teeth and toenails with gold or something. You should get in on some of that.
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September 9th, 2009 / 5:51 pmRoxane—
When I read about that book deal today, I calculated that he will write a book a minute, give or take. They should make for fantastic reading.
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September 9th, 2009 / 8:10 pmBrandon—
You give Patterson too much credit. He gets others to shit out his books, then gives them a “&” and five percent of the jacket cover real estate.
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September 10th, 2009 / 4:32 pmTim Jones-Yelvington—
i actually kind of like that about him.
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The best deal in that list is Joel Osteen, because he’s all about prosperity theology. If you like him? His God will make you a rich-ass author too!
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High five, Michael Schaub. You put the candle on the cake. Dean Koontz as a baby with a comb over — priceless.
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“I want you to go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!” – Glenn Beck
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this just made my day so much better.
fetish pony!
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It is wrong to admit you admire things about certain mass market writers? I admire James Michener’s huge ambition, and his geological points of entry. I admire Tom Clancy’s long expository set pieces about interesting military technology. I admire the event mechanics of John Grisham’s potboilers. Ditto Stephen King.
Dan Brown, Left Behind, Joel Osteen, Twilight — I can’t get behind any of that.
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September 9th, 2009 / 6:28 pmRoxane—
I don’t mind mass market writers. I’ll joke but I read Clancy, John Sandford, Michener, Grisham and I must confess, my favorite Dan Brown whose new opus will be delivered to me while I sleep in 9/15 and I am so excited I can’t even talk about it without jumping up and down like a little girl. There are indeed things we can admire in the ways these prolific, hugely popular writers write. It is just as myopic and problematic, I think, to dismiss mass market fiction as it is to disdain of more challenging texts that are more often discussed here. Having said that, there’s no redemption for Tyler Perry.
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September 9th, 2009 / 8:24 pmAmber—
I always secretly dug Michener. I’ll admit it.
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September 10th, 2009 / 7:11 amdavid erlewine—
Years ago, I told my Grandmother I always wanted to be a writer. She was so excited, handing me a copy of “Chesapeake”. By the end of the trip, I told her I just hand’t gotten into it. We didn’t discuss my writing after that.
September 9th, 2009 / 6:34 pmdavidpeak—
Graham Greene is probably my favorite author ever. And I really enjoyed Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. Stephen King, in my mind, is not “just” a mass-market author. Have you read IT? The Dark Tower books? They’re mind-bending texts, pushing more boundaries than most self-consciously “innovative” lit.
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September 9th, 2009 / 9:36 pmNathan (Nate) Tyree—
Big props on Mystic River.
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September 10th, 2009 / 7:14 amdavid erlewine—
huge props. that book is great. i also liked his short story “Until Gwen”.
oh man, this just made my day. I’d like to add Tom Clancy to this list, along with that dude whose name I can’t remember who co-writes a lot his books–I thought it was Zack something, he wrote these great SECRETS OF NINTENDO books in the 80s and then somehow wound up as the T-man’s sidekick. Oh, also, Michael Chricton, even though he’s dead, because he became such a huge rightwing asshole, I can’t help but feel his assholery lives on. Oh and what about the secretive collective that calls itself RL STINE. If they bring the Columbia Gold and Cristal, I’ll bring the getting wasted and blowing them.
LIVIN’ LARGE.
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September 9th, 2009 / 8:12 pmlorian—
i used to masturbate to rl stine and christopher pike. pike was so smutty.
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September 9th, 2009 / 10:42 pmJustin Taylor—
Yeah, Pike was some R-rated shit. And the stories were so bonkers. RL Stine was much more blah blah blah. Yeah, there were cheerleaders, but you were really doing most of the work. Even as a kid, I remember thinking “if one more bone is described as breaking with a ’sickening crack’ I’m going to slap this assclown in his assy face.” I feel like in some ways, giving up Stine and becoming a Pike devotee was the true beginning of my identity as a literary critic. Except probably not really.
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September 9th, 2009 / 10:49 pmMichael Schaub—
I’m with both of you on Pike. Now actually I want to read those again. You two are the second and third writers I like to mention Pike in the past few days. Maybe it’s a sign I should reread “Chain Letter.” Fuck it. I’m doing it.
September 10th, 2009 / 4:52 pmlorian—
pike WAS bonkers. the last vampire series was probably my first foray into bdsm.
September 10th, 2009 / 4:34 pmTim Jones-Yelvington—
oh god, like that trilogy …the party, the prom, graduation, or something like that?? that was his, right? where the female protag is checking out the football guy’s ass in this totally cruisy gay male-ish way?
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September 9th, 2009 / 8:21 pmAmber—
My favorite thing about Tom Clancy is that in some chapters, a character’s name will be O’Ryan, and then all of the sudden it’s O’Brien. His editor is AWESOME. But hey, they usually manage to keep within the right ethnic stereotype.
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September 9th, 2009 / 9:01 pmRoxane—
And thank goodness for that.
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I would totally add Clive Cussler to this esteemed list. When I was a teenager, I loved his books so much. Dirk Pitt seemed so hot. And he survived everything. And he had a bunch of old cars and lived in a hangar and was super super sexy and covert and he loves the ocean. But then Cussler had to write 11 books a year and Dirk Pitt got old and then he had two secret kids (twins, of course) that he knew nothing about and Al Giordano settled down and it was all very confusing so Cussler invented a new hero, a thinly veiled Dirk Pitt light named Kurt Austin and that guy and the ghost writer who writes him suck.
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I’m new to the site and half way down I began to think this was a joke. Please tell me I’m right?
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effin’ hee-larious! at first i thought the hot dudes were the pic for glenn beck !
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Where’s Danielle Steele? I, for one, can’t do without that incest story line. It gets better every time.
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September 9th, 2009 / 10:26 pmJason Cook—
Oh. Nevermind. Got caught up in the sexy Rachel Ray graphic.
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yes!
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Michael, you should check out Gideon. Guy must be loaded.
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[...] Steel and “That Madea Guy” both make the list of “15 Rich-Ass Authors I’ve Suddenly Decided to Like“. [...]
I bet Jorie Graham has hordes of filthy cash.
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and where’s the J.K. Rowling love? She could buy and sell each one of these fuckers.
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this was awesome.
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