How I Became a Famous Novelist

When Pete Tarslaw's ex-girlfriend, Polly, announces her upcoming wedding to an Australian in a move that seems precisely calculated to infuriate him, he knows he needs to take his revenge. In an attempt to humiliate Polly at her wedding, he decides to become a famous novelist. After studying the bestsellers list, he manages to churn out a book that's both terrible and destined to be a big seller. Soon, he is a rich, famous, and successful. But when his secret gets out, he finds himself pitted against the entire literary community—including Preston Brooks, whose sappy books inspired Pete Tarslaw's-- in a battle over the authenticity of modern writing.

How I Became A Famous Novelist is a 2009 debut novel of television writer Steve Hely. In 2010 the book won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. The rights to the film have been bought and we can expect a movie in the near future.


 * Airport Novel: Pete tries this briefly and there are excerpts from more than one. However, he gives up on it and returns to a more "literary" style of work because he finds it easier than an Airport Novel. He finds that keeping track of all the plot twists and revelations and dramatic reveals required in Airport Novels is hard compared to just throwing flashbacks and Imagine Spots into a straightforward plot and using his thesaurus freely.
 * Bitter Wedding Speech: The protagonist gives a speech at his ex's wedding that's not bitter, per se, but reveals embarrassing details of her past and is barely coherent (since he's extremely drunk at the time).
 * Book Within A Book: Pete's novel is The Tornado Ashes Club. The story is about a guy and his grandmother on a road trip across America with frequent flashbacks to her long-lost love Luke in World War II. They want to scatter Luke's ashes in a tornado. Its plot seems like a Cliché Storm, its prose is florid, and the bulk of it was written on a binge of an experimental drug.
 * No Celebrities Were Harmed: Several real celebrities are mentioned, such as Hollywood figures who are considered for roles in adaptations of novels or just are mentioned as signs of these fallen times. However, all the authors mentioned are fictional.
 * Oscar Bait: The Tornado Ashes Club is the literary version.
 * Stylistic Suck: Every Book Within A Book, and there are dozens.