Customer Reviews

The Manhattan Beach Project: A Novel

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This just might be the funniest book you'll read this year. Lefcourt skewers everything in his path: Hollywood, the television business, the State Department, political correctness and Central Asian politics. The story becomes more and more absurd, and just when you think he's never going to pull it together, he ropes you right in. Though this book is a sequel of sorts to his first novel, the delicious cult favorite, "The Deal," (the hero, Charlie Berns, returns) you don't have to have read that book to enjoy this one.

There's one caveat, however. If you read this book, you just might be hooked and want to go and read his six other books, each one a little gem in its own right. Don't say I didn't warn you.

It's been said that the spiritual ancestors of Hollywood producers are not charlatans and snake oil purveyors after all. They're a band of half-crazed itinerant jugglers. In this spirit, Peter Lefcourt has created a non-stop insider's sendup of the misnomered TV reality shows. In Lefcourt's view, the fallout from Hollywood has reached such a pass, that even in the bowels of Turmenistan, a demented warlord and his deranged minions are already afflicted by the U.S. entertainment industry. As it happens, these and other deadbeats crawling around the wastelands of Centra Asia are ripe for the last-ditch efforts of Charlie Burns, our washed-up producer hero, and other equally desperate TV executives back in L.A. in a never-ending hilarious series of machinations and complications. As it turns out, actual explosions, rampant sex of all sorts and assasinations, just aren't enough. All of this has to be tweaked with bogus subtitles and recycled plot lines so that potential viewers will keep tuning in for thirteen consecutive episodes.
In truth, things have gotten so bad that, in actuality, even the weather channel is now featuring victims of tornados, blizzards and floods who gleefully comment on footage of their own near-death experiences. It therefore might not be too much of a stretch to soon discover that the weather hawkers want more: people trapped in earthquakes in remote regions of the world replete with witty repartee and compelling, escalating complications that will hold viewers and outdo the major channels. To boost their flagging ratings, they will doubtless have no choice but to call on Peter Lefcourt.

(Mr.) Shelly Frome, Professor of Dramatic Arts Emeritus, Litchfield, Connecticut

AN OSCAR RATED COMEDIC ADVENTURE!

In today's uncertain world a book has emerged filled with welcomed comic relief.

Peter Lefcourt has a unique talent for unveiling the funny and the absurd often hidden by a serious façade. In this latest book we travel with him in his battle ready literary Hummer. He takes us from Hollywood to Central Asia. We meet a cast of offbeat characters swimming in a broth of intrigue, backstabbing and ambition sprinkled with the salt of active indolence. In all a real tight dysfunctional group of comical misfits.

At a time when the world is fending off a host of anxieties it's important to lighten up...his writing, this novel, offers a welcome escape with countless moments of fun filled adventure. If you are familiar with Lefcourt's writing style, you know it's a book not to be missed!

> Recent medical reports state that laughter is very healthy
for ones heart. Reading this book could add years.

I HAVE JUST FINISHED READING 'THE MANHATTAN BEACH PROJECT' BUT HAVE NOT STOPPED LAUGHING. IT IS UNIQUELY BRILLIANT AND FUNNY. THE PLOT IS COMPLEX, THE CHARACTERS OVER THE TOP. AND YET IT IS REVEALING AND TRUTHFUL. A GREAT READ.

A friend bought me this since I live in Manhattan Beach and I found it very entertaining. It's silly and wild and a good observance of The Industry, where nobody thinks about a hit, they're just worried they will be associated with a failure. I'd never read anything by Peter Lefcourt before, but this read has encouraged me to try another of his books.

This has to be one of the best, laugh out loud book I have ever read. 90% of the characters, though each with their own character flaws and moral shortcomings, have something in common that only Peter Lefcourt can write: you start to like or feel sympathy for just about every single one of them. You'll laugh out loud as the main character Charlie Berns takes everything in, from the first pages at his Debtors Anonymous meeting all the way to the end. A fantastic book. When you're finished reading this one I highly recomend "The Woody" also by Peter Lefcourt. If you work in Washington, ever dreamed of being in politics, or just a news/CSPAN junkie, The Woody is for you.

I ordered this book before going on a trip to Central Asia, not very sanguine about its possibilities as a good read. Wrong. It's fabulously funny and biting, as much a send-up of American culture and "reality TV" shows as it insightful into Central Asia. I thought that Lefcourt might be exaggerating about the political situation in Turkmenistan--the president who renames days of the week after his own relatives--but having been there, I realize it's true. Paul Theroux's article in the New Yorker about Turkmenistan (June 2007) is a good companion. The others on my trip similarly enjoyed this novel; it was laugh out loud funny.

Yesterday, I read and reveled in Peter Lefcourt's The Manhattan Beach Project. Set in Los Angeles and Central Asia, it's a deeply funny and satiric take on U.S. TV programming, Hollywood producers, the CIA and others. Much out-loud laughter during reading. Finest kind. Do yourself a favor and read it soon.

Very funny sequel to "The Deal". Lefcourt is one of my favorite fun authors. If you want another great read, get "The Dreyfus Affair".

Perhaps I was expecting a hybrid of Stephen Fry and Gary Shteyngart, but the book seemed off balance. While entertaining, the parodying of Hollywood stereotypes at every possible opportunity somehow made the entire book seem as dispensable as the various airheads that wander in and out of the story. Most of the characters are cartoon vignettes, making it a bit difficult (for me, at least) to stay interested in what happens to them.

I'm not suggesting that this should have been anything more than a one-day beach read, but it was disappointing after all the great reviews I'd seen of this.