Gawker
"Poised for success in the literary community: Not only is Jeff Hobbs dedicating The Tourists to his mentor Bret Easton Ellis, but The Tourists has a plot and depth that makes it comparable to some of today's finest literary fiction," according to the copy on the galley of 27-year-old's debut novel. These statements are not entirely untrue! The literary community, or something like it, did turn out in full force last night to celebrate the book's publication. Jonathan Franzen was there! (Supposedly: we didn't actually glimpse him). And so was, for some reason, Aaron Eckhart!
Why was the star of Thank You For Smoking celebrating the publication of a literary novel at a much-ballyhooed Lower East Side club? For that matter, why was the party located at said ballyhooed club? And why was it sponsored by "Leblon Capirinhas," a drink which required labor-intensive hand-muddling by a team of beleagured, vintageish-costumed bartenders and which one partygoer was overheard describing as tasting "like poison"? The answer to all these questions was that Jeff Hobbs is married to a lady movie producer, who has lots of "connections," according to his Simon & Schuster publicist.
Jeff and his connected wife stood in the center of the thronged, dimly lit bar area of the Box, nodding shyly when approached. "Have you met Jeff? He's the nicest person in the world!" Jeff's agent David Halpern said repeatedly. This turned out to be pretty much true, which makes it hard to say anything about his novel, which explores how the plot points of The Great Gatsby would play out in 2007 if the Nick and Gatsby characters had been gay with each other in college. Here is a representative excerpt.
An editor at The Observer who has a long-standing crush on me and has thrown a significant amount of paying work my way because of that crush invites me to a Chelsea gallery opening filled with young and pretentious New Yorkers, and I know it will be painful and hard to endure—the usual—but because of the way the city works, I find myself in the position of not being able to say no to the editor at The Observer who is burdened with the crush.One of the fun conceits of The Box is that it's about 'redemocratizing' nightlife by providing a safe place for rich people to sit at tables drinking $500 bottles of vodka while caged remnants of the old Lower East Side prance before them on the stage of a restored vaudeville theater. The book party took place so early in the evening, though, that bottle service was not yet in effect. This meant that the publishing assistants occupying the coveted tables were only charged $13 for the non-capirinha beverages which they inevitably found themselves switching to as the party wore on. "Now I can say that I've been here!" one of them gushed. Two of them were tasked with selling copies of the book. Guests, perhaps feeling that their $24 would be better spent on almost two cocktails, seemed hesitant to buy.Ethan sees me first. I am waiting at the bar for my fifth glass of wine.
"Things fall apart." The voice is behind me.
"The center cannot ... hold?" I reply haltingly.
"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."
It is the preface to the one class we took together—Literature of Imperialism, fall semester, junior year.
By this point, Hobbs and his wife had made their way to the epicenter of the party. Hobbs smiled blithely into the crowd with a searching look in his eyes, occasionally running a hand through his boyish blond 90s hair. Perhaps he was finding the party painful and hard to endure, but because of the way the city works, had found himself in the position of not being able to say no.
Comments
This makes me want to stab my Chinua with an Achebe.
dammit, Hobbs keeps showing up at the wrong box...
i even drew him a map last time.
Emily, please stop reading this tripe, even if it is for our benefit. It is harming your soul. I'd rather see you working in an asbestos mine.
Is that really a representative excerpt? Did he attend the Dan Brown School of Stilted, Awkward Prose?
Yes, please go back to only reading the fine quality literature you were exposed to in the trenches of the publishing industry, like My Life, My Cats.
"Turn and examine a single commodity, by itself, as we will, yet in so far as it remains an object of value, it seems impossible to grasp it. If, however we bear in mind that the value of commodities has a purely social reality, and that they acquire this reality only in so far as they are expressions or embodiments of one identical social substance, viz., human labour, it follows as a matter of course, that value can only manifest itself in the social relation of commodity to commodity."
-or-
"Here, Youngblood Hawke, have another Manhattan Pirahna."
You can tell from the photo that it's a good book. The scandal is that the dog wrote it.
Six paragraphs of pretentious twat-waffling. Can't wait to read the rest!
nothing says, "this book really sucks" like a cash bar at a book party. Well, and also those excerpts.
"Sit, Ayelet!"
Yet another literary wunderkind that we wil all be bashing in a few months.
@La Pauline: A few months? Honey, we're bashing him right now!
Yes, he's fast-tracked for the Hall of Unbearable Exposition. I guess it's lucky for him he married rich.
ella- damn, you beat me to it!
I also wanted to make a joke about that first long-ass sentence needing more periods, and the party being held at the box... needless to say it didn't come together and i'm a total failure :)
An end of the year comparative analysis will determine that Emily's use of exclamation points far exceeds any other Gawker staffer. Calm the fuck down!
"The center...cannot hold?"
This one phrase is so very Bret Easton Ellis that my mind is boggled.
Maybe there's a "B.E.E. clause generator" web site out there.
If not, you know what I'm inventing this evening!
"Van and I sip Coronas in the heat, and smoke."
"Linsey [sic] turns into a sconce, oblivious."
etc
Oh and
"should of"
I hate it when I encourage someone's crush on me in order to get something out of them that they'd never otherwise give me, and then I have to endure their mistaken idea that I might even like them. And also pretend I didn't want it when I describe it to other people.
@ leader...
Blasphemy, dude. It's Yeats.
Why were these kids reading Yeats in a course called Literature of Imperialism in the first place? I'm going to grill Mr. Cloacina on this, because he's a Yalie.
@stew:
Yeah, just meant the pause and the question mark. The style.
ok, phew. For a second I was worried you went to Williams or something.
@VenusCloacina: Yes, what would an early-20th century Irishman know about that?
I just can't help but wonder how much better the book would be if the protagonists had gone to Illinois.
i was reading a manuscript over some woman's shoulder on the F train yesterday. it was called the Book of the Night Women and evidently set in slavery-era America, with consistently self-conscious non-grammatical pre-bonix prose and plentiful use of the n-word, which as we all know, was widely employed by African-Americans to each other in the 18th century. anyway, i thought no one's job could suck so bad as to have to endure reading this crud, and then i thought, what if this winds up on the cover of the book review next year? then i went home and worked on my memoir.
I'd hit that...and the dog could watch.
The dog's book hot, definitely. Jeff...well, he's 1993 yearbook hot. Junior class, not senior.
@jew: it's ok. you're still fairly new here. just hire an intern to make all your comments like i did. speaking of which, where the fuck is she with my dry cleaning???
"...comparable to some of today's finest literary fiction.". only today, mind. yesterday, tomorrow, next week? that's another story.
"'the centre cannot ...hold' i reply haltingly". yes, indeed, i can see how you could fail to remember the end of such an obscure quotation. [thinks: the centre cannot...bold? sold?mold? eh, so difficult, these poets.]
i believe, there's another touching scene later on:
"to be or not to be." the voice is behind me.
"that is the...oh fuck, i give up!" i reply haltingly.
"question"
it is the preface to the one class we took together in high school: 'shit pretty much everyone knows already. apart from you, apparently'.
J. at B_______ Bookshop said that "Mergers and Acquisitions" was one of the worst books she'd read in some time, then stopped herself and said, "No, watch for the book The Tourists. That's a worse book."
Perhaps it's time we had more books about community college and state school grads who still drink brown bottle beer and only hear of the hot parties while they drown in reruns of "Everybody Loves Raymond."
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