SHRIVER: A Novel

 

"Chris Belden's Shriver is as hilarious and smart as Michael Malone's Foolscap, as wise and sympathetic as Stoner.  Academic farces don't come any better."

                                    -- Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

 

"In Shriver Chris Belden has written a fast-paced, wildly inventive novel that is somehow both hilarious and thought-provoking. In fact, I couldn’t stop wondering when I last read a book so enjoyable. Zbigniew Herbert famously compared lit-conferences to the 10th level of hell, well, if he could’ve read  Shriver he would’ve added a level."

                                    -- Philip Schultz, Pulitzer-winning author of Failure

 

"This picaresque and piquant satire of writers, academics, their quirky characters and content-lacking conferences is reminiscent of David Lodge’s satiric spins on academe. Darkly comic, Shriver also reminded me of Martin Scorsese’s inversion of The Wizard of Oz in the movie After Hours—the obstacles, the quirky characters, the plot turns and pivots. Despite its ability to laugh at the writing world and its daffy denizens, Shriver nonetheless ultimately affirms the essential importance of the word."

                                    --Joan Connor, author of History Lessons

 

"Shriver is a hoot, a farce about mistaken identity set at a writers’ conference where facile poets and pompous novelists declaim, carouse and, possibly, commit murder. In a style somewhere between Evelyn Waugh and Mel Brooks, Belden’s satire lampoons all things literary but also, amazingly, convinces us to care about the fools that these mortals be."

                                   —Alan Davis, author of So Bravely Vegetative

 

"Shriver is a send-up of academia and literary pretension, as well as a poignant exploration of writerly insecurity."

                                    --Dani Shapiro, author of Slow Motion

 

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Publication date: Sept. 29, 2015

Touchstone/Simon & Schuster

 

Visit the Simon & Schuster SHRIVER page!