This Is Your Life - Tapa blanda

O'Farrell, John

 
9780802141347: This Is Your Life
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ISBN 10: 080214134X ISBN 13: 9780802141347
Editorial: Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press, 2004

Sinopsis

A funny, satirical novel about fame follows the misadventures of Jimmy, a loser who manages to convince an inexperienced journalist that he is the latest sensation in comedy--a farce that gathers momentum each time the story is retold. Original.

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Críticas

"Very funny--this engaging farce is peppered with O'Farrell's observations on personal fulfillment and the media."

Reseña del editor

A hugely entertaining novel about the art of stand up comedy, This is Your Life was a runaway bestseller in England. O'Farrell's hero, Jimmy Conway, starts out the novel at the London Palladium. He is about to perform his stand up comedy routine in front of two thousand invited guests and millions more watching the event live on TV. He steps out blinking into the spotlights and waits for the applause to die down. He tries to appear confident but he can't help wondering whether he should have shared his little secret with someone by now. Jimmy has never performed any stand up before - ever. Conway, a nondescript thirtysomething with a long-faded dream of telling jokes in public, starts the proceedings at the lowest point in his life - teaching school, spending his evenings with a old and grizzled collection of barroom bores (including his ex-girlfriend Nancy) and generally feeling miserable over never having gotten his one lucky break. Things take a turn for the better when a local comedy legend, Billy Scrivens, with whom Conway has exchanged a fragment or two of small-talk while out running, drops down dead. Interviewed on television, where he is plausibly represented as the deceased's jogging companion, Jimmy suddenly discovers a tiny chink in the door of the closely guarded gateway to fame and celebrity. After snatching a ticket to Billy's funeral (paid for by the UK equivalent of People Magazine, and awash with the rich and famous) he convinces a gullible journalist that he is the latest underground comedy sensation, a performer so principled that he shuns TV and restricts himself to unscheduled appearances at out-of-the-way clubs. A stack of forged reviews from a phantom American tour does the rest. Courtesy of a rave profile in a national newspaper, his career takes off. The subsequent rollercoaster ride whisks him all the way from a best new stand-up comedy award (where his acceptance speech loss of nerve - "Look, there's been a terrible mistake" - is taken as a riotous gag) to a dullard contribution to a nationally syndicated television show, and even a lucrative ad campaign. Success, inevitably, has its downside: the girls are too eager even for sex-starved Jimmy, and the pub regulars are over-awed by his sudden success. Which all leads to Jimmy's big night at the Palladium, an ingenious finish where the carpet is pulled from beneath Jimmy's feet, which is credit to O'Farrell's resourcefulness, and his relish of the comic twist and detour.

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Editorial
Grove Press / Atlantic Monthly Press
Año de publicación
2004
Idioma
Inglés
ISBN 10 
080214134X
ISBN 13 
9780802141347
Encuadernación
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Número de páginas
313
Contacto del fabricante
no disponible
Persona responsable
no disponible

Otras ediciones populares con el mismo título

9780552998499: This Is Your Life

Edición Destacada

ISBN 10:  0552998494 ISBN 13:  9780552998499
Editorial: Black Swan, 2003
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