Flatscreen - by Adam Wilson (Paperback)

About the Book

From a rising indie-lit star comes the gleefully absurd, heartwarming story of a young man's struggle to become a new person in a world where nothing is new.

Book Synopsis

"OMFG, I nearly up and died from laughter when I read Flatscreen. This is the novel that every young turk will be reading on their way to a job they hate and are in fact too smart for." --Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story

Indie-lit star and Faster Times editor Adam Wilson delivers the gleefully absurd, effortlessly heartwarming story of one young man's struggle to shake off the listless, sexless, stoned mantle of suburban teenage life and become something better. Fortunately (maybe) for Eli, his apathetic quest finds a catalyzing agent in one Mr. Seymour J. Kahn, a paraplegic sex addict and two-bit silver screen star who initiates a mad decent into debasement and (of course) YouTube stardom--a transformation from which there will be no going back.

From the Back Cover

Flatscreen tells the story of Eli Schwartz as he endures the loss of his home, the indifference of his parents, the success of his older brother, and the cruel and frequent dismissal of the opposite sex. He is a loser par excellence--pasty, soft, and high--who struggles to become a new person in a world where nothing is new.

Into this scene of apathy rolls Seymour J. Kahn. Former star of the small screen and current paraplegic sex addict, Kahn has purchased Eli's old family home. The two begin a dangerous friendship, one that distracts from their circumstances but speeds their descent into utter debasement and, inevitably, YouTube stardom.

By story's end, through unlikely acts of courage and kindness, roles will be reversed, reputations resurrected, and charges (hopefully) dropped. Adam Wilson writes mischief that moves the heart, and Flatscreen marks the wondrous debut of a truth-telling comic voice.

Review Quotes

"Adam Wilson is a gutsy, funny, and often beautiful writer, and Flatscreen is one of the most hilarious and commanding debuts I've read in a long time." - Sam Lipsyte
"OMFG, I nearly up and died from laughter when I read Flatscreen. This is the novel that every young turk will be reading on their way to a job they hate and are in fact too smart for." - Gary Shteyngart
"An auspicious debut that promises, in Wilson, a standout addition to a new generation of writers." - Booklist (starred review)
"A frequently funny subversion of the coming-of-age story...the voice is strong and the characters indelible..." - Kirkus Reviews
"[Wilson's] prose is relentless, and his world view is on fire. Flatscreen is a wickedly funny, absurdly engaging debut. I'd recommend it for fans of Sam Lipsyte and anyone looking for an unconventional coming-of-age story." - Jami Attenberg
"Reading Flatscreen in public without cracking up was a challenge, one that I did not meet, and I frequently looked like a crazy person reading the book. Wilson balances heartbreak with humor in a way that is affecting and real. In the book we meet Eli Schwartz, college dropout, failed Hebrew, and culinary master. Eli's struggle to assert himself in a digitized world, as a fleshed out man, is as scary-real as it is funny. Eli longs for what all twenty-somethings long for, a sense of belonging, to be loved, worshiped. Flatscreen is a treasure. Bravo, Mr. Wilson!" - Zach Sampinos, Sam Weller's Books, Salt Lake City, UT (March 2012 Indie Next Pick)
"Wilson expertly crafts explosively hilarious scenes ranging from a Viagra/Oxycontin/cocaine-driven meltdown during a high school football game to the complete destruction of what might have been a reasonably pleasant Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends." - Forward
''...hilarious and edgy..." - Baltimore Sun
"Perverse, subversive, and hilariously outrageous, the book delivers memorable characters, a rollicking plot, and a new voice that comes across as anything but flat." - Barnes and Noble Review
"Wilson pulls you in with smart, self-deprecating comedy, and you never see the sting that's coming. Through the seemingly-familiar prism of a disaffected young man wandering through his Massachusetts hometown, Wilson examines questions of class, intimacy, and our relationship to the media that surrounds us every day." - L Magazine
"Comic novelist Adam Wilson makes his swaggering debut in Flatscreen." - Vanity Fair
"Eli's narration in Flatscreen is darkly funny..." - Entertainment Weekly
"Wilson gives us something depressingly hilarious and undeniably real....Low-level angst is still angst, and Wilson captures it perfectly." - Time Out New York
"A fine debut from Wilson." - New York Post
"Wilson's sharp, heartrending prose is captivating and comically laced, and an ultimately satisfying read." - Jewish Book Council
"...immensely satisfying ... Wilson has created a thoroughly lovable slacker, part hilarious, part poignant." - New Yorker
"Adam Wilson delivers rapid fire prose that is distinctively intelligent, hilarious, artful, and perverse. While never failing to entertain, Flatscreen stealthily exposes the psychic abyss that haunts every fit of laughter. A dark jewel of a book." - Heidi Julavits
"Wilson's prose is original and arresting ... he approaches, in his loftier moments, the tortured grace of George Saunders. This is Cheever on Xanax, or maybe lithium, but the voice is still there; sardonic, hilarious, and very much of our time. Wilson is a writer to watch." - Daily Beast
"Rollicking...Comedy and pathos abound in Seymour's absurdist world, and in Eli's fantasies of a better life that come in the form of hilariously familiar cinematic scenarios in which, for instance, the screwup becomes the star chef. Fans of Jack Pendarvis and Sam Lipsyte will enjoy Wilson's fresh, fantastical perspective..." - Publishers Weekly
"Five things we emphatically endorse this month ... a laugh-out-loud literary debut ..." - Details
"Sure, it's another chubby stoner loser protagonist who is forced to turn into a real person when he gets irritating real-world problems dumped on his lap, but Adam Wilson does it with special aplomb." - Flavorwire
"If you smashed The Catcher in the Rye into Jesus' Son, you might have something quite close to Flatscreen, a narrative of wayward youth for our beguiled new century on the brink of a discovery we might not welcome." - BookForum
"Truth be told -- I've sold books with Adam, shared food and drink on occasion with him, and have critiqued an untold amount of writers in his presence. But having worked nearly three decades in the business of books, I've rarely encountered a more fully-realized debut novel. Written with wit and wisdom, Flatscreen is an audacious, smart, and riotously funny work that demands serious attention". - Chad Bunning, BookCourt, Brooklyn, NY (March 2012 Indie Next Pick)
"Ignatius J. Reilly is swiftly transplanted from the pages of A Confederacy of Dunces to the suburbs of Boston in this hilarious and winsome debut in the form of Eli Schwartz, slacker. That Quinosset is a stand-in for Newton is trivia (though it'll be hard to pass the former Gino's Pizza/former Filene's Basement parking garage on Needham Street as innocently as in the past): the real news is that Adam Wilson has written a very funny and keenly-observed novel with an anti-hero who really is a hero. Reading Flatscreen is the equivalent of standing on the lawn and holding a boombox blaring anthems over your head. Once you dry your eyes and the illegal smoke clears, you'll be cheering for Eli, and maybe be a little wiser about the movement of the human heart in the bargain." - Jaime Clarke, Newtonville Books, Newton, MA (March 2012 Indie Next Pick)
"Flatscreen is a bleakly funny and totally outrageous debut from an exciting new writer. Adam Wilson has written the slacker novel to end all slacker novels." - Tom Perrotta
"Adam Wilson's Flatscreen is the sort of novel we've heard nobody is able to write anymore: erudite and hilarious, raunchy and topical, and flat-out fun. Nicholson Baker meets Barthleme with a dash of Nabokov - Wilson is not a writer for the faint-of-heart. But quit mourning the so-called death of the great novel and buy this altogether magical book." - Darin Strauss
"Flatscreen is the sort of novel we've heard nobody is able to write anymore: erudite and hilarious, raunchy and topical, and flat-out fun. Nicholson Baker meets Barthleme with a dash of Nabokov....[B]uy this altogether magical book." - Darin Strauss
"Adam Wilson struts into that dark destination of post-high-school misery and emerges with a story full of energy and hilarity and emotion. What a great read!" - Deb Olin Unferth