Marisha Pessl's new 600-page thriller Night Film centers on a fictional recluse named Stanislas Cordova, who made films so horrifically, soul-destroyingly evil they were effectively banned in the U.S. When his beautiful young daughter mysteriously dies, an investigative journalist becomes infected with the need to…
Hillary Clinton turns 62 today. Julian Schnabel is turning 58. Dylan McDermott is 48. Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder is turning 32. Keith Urban is 42. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane is turning 36. Rita Wilson is 53. Novelist Marisha Pessl is 32. Times theater critic Ben Brantley turns 55. Singer Natalie Merchant is…
Demi and Rumer enjoy some male stripper action, Jessica Simpson angles for an American Idol gig, the fate of Michael Jackson's corpse remains a creepy mystery, Lady Gaga abuses men, Britney sports a new bikini, and Hugh Grant contemplates retirement.
• George Michael is back in the news and, as usual, it has nothing to do with his music. The singer was arrested on Friday for driving drunk when he crashed his car into a truck. Michael, however, is insisting he was sober at the time. So maybe he's just a bad driver? [NYDN, E!]
• Is Joe Simpson trying to push the…
Fashion star Zac Posen celebrates his 28th birthday today. Actor Kevin Kline is 61. Law & Order's B.D. Wong is 48. R&B singer Monica is turning 28. Shenae Grimes of 90210 is 19. Your favorite bisexual MTV personality, Tila Tequila, is 27. And Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich celebrates his 42nd birthday today.…
Pessl is the author of the 2006 novel Special Topics in Calamity Physics.
Book-buying editors sound like they're feeling the heat more than ever. What at least one big-house big-wig editor is telling the cute young novelists this week is that, in the current thinking on author advances, "$125K is the new $250K." We imagine what this really means is that he's damn sick of paying a quarter of…
More good news for publicity-shy author Marisha Pessl: she not only has a fancy new paintbox, she now has a movie deal. Variety reported today that Miramax Films and producer Scott Rudin have bought film rights to her debut novel, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. A preternaturally prescient Pessl forsaw this…
As 2006 huffs toward its inexorable end, we decided to take a moment to recognize those personalities that made our job that much more tolerable this year. These are the people who gave us endless fodder for our douchebag mill, who were attracted to the spotlight like moths to a flame, whose stated disdain for our…
See, the thing is, we really liked Special Topics in Calamity Physics. We're suckers for anything remotely The Secret History-ish, we thought it was an impressively well-constructed mystery, and we liked the endearingly amateurish quality lent by Pessl's doodley illustrations. And we truly, honestly think that it's…
Frankly, we find the whole debate as to the level of novelist Marisha Pessl's attractiveness to be more than a little sexist. It's as if we're saying that the only value a woman has is expressed in her looks. Well, there are plenty of other reasons to discuss Ms. Pessl. For instance: she has absolute shit taste in…
The Asheville Citizen-Times ("Voice of The Mountains") took a break from their usual coverage of jam band festivals and moonshine-still flareups to profile hometown girl made good Marisha Pessl, author of summertime hit Special Topics in Calamity Physics. We feel a little bit bad about continuing to mock Ms. "book…
We originally classified author Marisha Pessl as "book hot," then upped her to "TV hot," then tweaked the levels down to "Broadway hot" — all based on relevant photos, of course — but it appears that regardless of her photographic hotness, her physical presence underwhelms in terms of performance. An unimpressed…
