Product Description

A compelling and very funny novel about how we define 'success'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #19494 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-01
• Binding: Paperback
• 359 pages

The Sunday Times
'Excellently done...O'Farrell gives an extra squirm to the traditional English comedy of embarrassment'

Synopsis
Just as "bogus doctors" are occasionally discovered in hospitals, Jimmy Conway has become a "bogus celebrity"; winning an award for something he never did, being photographed in "Hello!" in someone else's house, and ultimately making a fool of the entire mad, shallow celebrity merry-go-round.

From the Back Cover
Jimmy Conway always wanted to be famous. As a teenager he even stashed away a series of letters advising his future self on how to handle the fame and fortune coming his way. And so when he's reunited with these rather embarrassing predictions in his mid-thirties he can't help feeling he must be a bit of a disappointment to himself.

Thus begins an extraordinary journey into the world of celebrity. Jimmy bluffs and stumbles all the way to the very top until he finds himself about to perform stand-up comedy in front of a packed theatre and a live television audience of millions. There's only one problem, he's never performed anything before - ever.

With his second novel, John O'Farrell has written a compelling, funny and acutely observed satire on our shallow celebrity-obsessed culture in the vain hope that he might get to go on telly occasionally.

Customer Reviews

I really enjoyed this book by John O'Farrell
I really enjoyed this book by John O'Farrell. It told the story of Jimmy Conway who always dreamed of being famous but the real truth was that he hadn't done any stand up comedy before.

As I read I had to laugh because I thought that Betty was Jimmy's girlfriend and it turned out to be his dog. Billy Scrivens was Jimmy's friend and they met when Jimmy was walking his dog.

Jimmy went around telling people that he had done stand up comedy in different places and then he had to own up so I think it was a pipedream.

Loved the take up of This Is Your Life when Jimmy was the 'subject' of the programme and in his mind all his friends and relations were supposedly appearing in his 'dream'

I think John O'Farrell is a good writer and his book made me laugh.

Well done John and all the best.

The value of surface over content...
At times hilarious, this book is about the superficiality of fame and how 'celebs' club together to maintain their 'celebrity' even when they have no idea who anyone is. I like O'Farrell's wandering style and the self-effacing protagonist who manages to advance his career through a combination of bluff and luck.

As other reviewers have rightly pointed out, the major twist near the end of the book is highly contrived and somehow cheapens the whole thing.

Bearing in mind the subject-matter, that may have been the point, but it also tended to make the main characters less 3D than they should be.

Still, it IS funny and worth a read.

Amusing but contrived
I enjoy John O'Farrell's writing, particular his political columns, and "The Best a Man Can Get" was a successful move into fiction. But my feelings about this one are more equivocal.

First, the good stuff. O'Farrell still has a great eye for the killer line to top off a scene. The situation Jimmy gets himself into provides the reader with plenty of amused squirming. And the subject matter - the cult of celebrity and the metropolitan urge to keep up with the "next best thing" - is crying out to be lampooned.

But there are problems. In setting up the comic situations the author asks for just a little to much credulity from his reader. Whilst one can accept the power of coincedence as a narrative device - and, indeed, enjoy the comedy of a great pile of coincedences for a hapless protagonist - there is just too much labouring towards the point at which everything will collapse. By the time I got to the top of the rollercoaster I was expecting a hell of a comic ride down. What I got was a pleasant but staid bit of farce.

Additionally, the supporting cast of characters is one-dimensional, and Jimmy himself doesn't really have a sufficient narrative arc to fully develop his character. The payoff - that rather than dreaming of fame we should look for happiness closer to home - is just a bit too trite.

That said, the book is undemanding and amusing and I got through it with several smirks, a chortle and two guffaws. Perfect for a beach read, and as long as you don't regard it as the treatise on modern manners it sometimes tries to be, you'll enjoy it too.