I have now read all of Seth Greenland's novels, and boy, is he a terrific writer. This one has a bit of meandering plot - the first two thirds are a behind the scenes look at the Hollywood lives of a stand-up comic, itching for a comedy pilot, and a comedy show writer, who's been writing the coattails of a more successful writer but then gets his own shot - a multi-millionaire-dollar, multi-year development deal with a cable network. In the final third, it becomes a crime novel, but Greenland successfully strings it all together. What makes it all work is the strength of these two characters, as the novel shifts between their two points of view from chapter to chapter. Frank Bones, the comic, is like a white Richard Pryoer, a brilliant comic who's always living on the edge - doing too much drugs and even pulling out a gun and shooting at the ceiling during one of his shows. Lloyd, the writer, is a schmiel, who takes for granted his million-dollar deal because he really wants to be creating great art and is envious of the secretary who's penning a novel in her spare time. He's also henpecked at home with a wife who's busy climbing the Hollywood social ladder, and whose dream is to live in the toniest neighborhoods and be in with the "in-nest" Hollywood crowd. Frank and Lloyd knew each other in their early days in New York when Frank was just starting out and Lloyd was a reporter for an alternative newspaper. Their lives become intertwined again when they're both developing comedy pilots for a cable network. The Hollywood stuff is terrific - skewering the silliness of pitch sessions and showing how charitable causes simply serve as an outlet for these vain people to try to outdo each other. The final third raises the stakes on everything, but the novel stills remain true to the exploration of the arcs of these characters lives - as Frank pushes everything in his life to the outermost edges and beyond, and wannabe Lloyd trails along, wishing he had the chutzpah Frank does to live his life on his own terms. Along the way the sentences, observations, and humorous and biting satire Greenland offers make the novel, like his two others, one entertaining ride.
Frank Bones, the oddball protagonist of The Bones, carries this clever story about moral misfires and tabloid celebrity in Hollywood. Bones, who addresses himself in the third person, is a comic dud anxious to reach beyond his C-list fame. Greenland weaves a clever, if not over-the-top, story about one man's attempt to regain fame and another's sideways journey to reap its rewards. There are bones to pick with this debut, though one may overlook such trivialities when realizing how difficult it is to avoid comedic repetition. Greenland almost gets away with it; however, much of Bones's plot mimics the shtick of so many other Vineland-esque tales. Is it any wonder that he got the most love from California critics? In short, this is the literary equivalent of cotton candy__it is confectioned and colorful, but not terribly fulfilling.This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
What do You think about The Bones (2006)?
"The Bones" refers to Frank Bones, bad boy of comedy; and this satirical story follows him along with Lloyd Melnick, a comedy writer who knows Frank from way back in New York before L.A. While self-aggrandizing stand-up comic Frank is unfaithful to his porny girlfriend, enjoys target practice with his drug dealer at the shooting range, and chases ever elusive fame of epic proportions, poor Lloyd suffers being husband to a dictatorial wife, father to a sociopathic toddler, and fantastically successful comedy writer despite his best attempts at sabotage. This is a viciously witty look at America's media culture of mediocrity. For me it was kind of like spending hours on end stuck in websites like blindgossip or blinditemsexposed.com.
—Emi Bevacqua
Tod Goldberg at the LAT Festival of books called this the funniest book he's read in the past 10 years. That intrigued me.It wasn't the funniest book I've read in the past 10 years, but then I again I don't work in TV in Los Angeles. Its humor did grow on me, so that by the final 100 pages I was laughing out loud at times. Ultimately, the absurdity is so extreme (think Carl Hiaison) that it's hard to take it too seriously. But then again, maybe I just don't realize how bad things are there. I'm not sorry that I read it.
—Jeannette
