Golk (Phoenix Fiction)

Product Information

I found this battered novel in the basement of Black Squirrel Books in Ottawa, ON, buried in a pile of old, orange Penguin paperbacks (if you ever see a pile of old, orange Penguin paperbacks, do not walk away from them. I’m not certain that Stern was working out this formulation about the numbing and deadening qualities of too-pervasive television and the false intimacy of celebrity, but it seems to pertain.

Fingering the battered cover and flipping through the yellowed pages inside, eventually the cashier saw my point and I purchased it for a mere two bucks. Stern’s writing is fast-paced, wry, and very knowing (so knowing, in fact, that I often felt at sea when reading the dialogues between Hondorp and Hendricks), but the novel’s brevity and pace lend itself easily, like Gatsby, to another perusal to linger over some aspect that memorably pleased (and there were several such funny scenes and characterizations) and thereby better glimpse something of the elusive bigger picture. As popular as You're on Camera has become, he knows the show is capable of making a greater, more transformative impact.Its protagonist is equally clueless, although he learns, and he is equally taken under the wing of a strange guy who tries to be mythic and always the smartest guy in the room. Through a devastating series of exposures-'You're on Camera'-Golk manipulates the high and mighty, the lowdown and dirty, and the outrageous weird; all are within the compass of Richard Stern in this early novel, a comedy with as many inspired maneuvers as its rambunctious protagonist has for taking the measure of a profligate world. Passenger lists are your ticket to knowing when your ancestors arrived in the UK, and how they made the journey - from the ship name to ports of arrival and departure. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.

Combining high drama with surreal hilarity and presenting a remarkably prescient view of the future of television, Golk ranks with Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust as one of the finest novels ever written about the American entertainment industry. Richard Stern, professor of English at the University of Chicago, is the author of many works of fiction, including Other Men's Daughters, Natural Shocks, and the recent, much-acclaimed A Father's Words. Within census records, you can often find information like name of household members, ages, birthplaces, residences, and occupations. The more combative the personality, the better the joke, and to help trap his victims Golk enlists a team of misfits, including Herbert Hondorp, a scholarly layabout turned photogenic decoy, and Jeanine Hendricks, a 23-year-old debutante with a bitter worldview. Most purchases from business sellers are protected by the Consumer Contract Regulations 2013 which give you the right to cancel the purchase within 14 days after the day you receive the item.

Between 1966 and 2003, in the United States, Golk life expectancy was at its lowest point in 1978, and highest in 1989. After executing a few of these larger golks, which result in lawsuits and reduced ratings, Golk is gently ousted from his role as the show’s lead, and Hondorp and Hendricks happily take the reins in his place. As popular as You’re On Camera has become, he knows the show is capable of making a greater, more transformative impact. There are shades of “The Great Gatsby” here—Holdorp as Nick and Golk as Gatsby—and the conclusions of each have the same wistful desperation.