Resentment: A Comedy [Hardcover]

Gary Indiana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 16, 1997

Day of the Locusts meets Bonfire of the Vanities in this searing burlesque about everyone from the east coast literati to Hollywood's superagents, actors, has-beens and wannabes. Gary Indiana takes no prisoners as he sets his "hero," B-magazine writer Seth, out in Los Angeles to do a celebrity profile of a famous hetero actor who has just taken a major role as a homosexual with AIDS. While on the West Coast, Seth becomes mildly, then completely obsessed with the trial of two privileged young men who are accused of killing their parents in cold blood as they lay sleeping in their Beverly Hills home.



Indiana weaves the story of Seth and his not inconsequential resentment for the world at large with the riveting "Martinez" case as it unfolds before the American public. Ironically, hilariously, and ingeniously, Indiana juxtaposes both stories in this blackest of comedies, as he reveals the role of resentment in all human relationships, and the darker side of L.A. roiling beneath the glamour. The media loves nothing more than itself, and no writer/agent/actor/journalist will be able to resist this tell-all novel about all the beautiful people.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Since the mid-1970s, Gary Indiana has been making a name for himself as a renegade thinker and writer. In the Village Voice and Rolling Stone he created a new brand of highly personal, overtly political cultural commentary that has reshaped journalism. His novels and short stories are equally controversial. Resentment, his new novel, is a true hybrid of his art. Based on Indiana's coverage of the Menendez brothers' trial, the novel is an all-out, savagely funny attack on the media, the U.S. justice system, television, family, and Los Angeles. Indiana is relentless in his desire to expose the insanity that rages beneath the surface of U.S. life and determined to make us laugh out loud even as we shake our heads in sorry recognition.

From Library Journal

This cinematically structured black comedy focuses on a society gone mad. Seth is an embittered gay journalist on assignment in Los Angeles to cover a sensational murder trial reminiscent of that of the Menendez brothers. Like a Robert Altman film, the scenes shift between the tabloid fodder of the nationally televised trial and the ever-increasing difficulties and disappointments in the lives of Seth and his circle of friends. At times corrosively satiric and at others scatalogical and over the top, this novel reads like a cross between Nathaniel West and William S. Burroughs. Though journalist and novelist Indiana's (Gone Tomorrow, LJ 3/1/93) latest is at times uneven and occasionally rambling, there is an undeniable power in its mordant moral vision. For larger public libraries.
-? Lawrence Rungren, Merrimack Valley Lib. Consortium, Andover, Mass.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (June 16, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385484291
• ISBN-13: 978-0385484299
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,980,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Resentment, June 22, 2000

By 

Robert Gluck - See all my reviews

This review is from: Resentment: A Comedy (Paperback)

... Indiana is one of the best, most incisive writers inAmerica. He's funny, ferociously angry, incredibly conversant, andhis books--including Resentment--put a frame around our culture's insanity. He's not only highly entertaining-he's necessary.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ultrafantabulous!, August 11, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (San Francisco, California United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Resentment: A Comedy (Paperback)

Like some 19th century Russian, Indiana grapples with BIG issues of morality and the human condition. In his epic vision, Los Angeles comes across like Mortville, the nightmare town from John Waters' masterpiece Desperate Living. The hapless characters, each rendered frighteningly believable by witty, insightful prose, are all on collision courses with each other's wanton perversity and unchecked megalomania. Wickedly funny and unsentimental, Indiana is never unempathetic as he unflinchingly depicts the car crash of contemporary society. Can't we all get along? Perhaps not.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not an easy read, but a fascinating pastiche..., April 1, 2004

By 

L Goodman-Malamuth "Leslie Goodman-Malamuth" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Resentment: A Comedy (Paperback)

Indiana takes a searching look of the Los Angeles I know, and more importantly, that I don't know. The presumptive topic of the book is told from the viewpoint of Seth, a writer out from New York to profile a bland, glossy movie star for a bland, glossy magaine, and when he can snag a seat, to cover the Menendez trial (here called the "Martinez" trial). There are almost too many diversions and subplots to count, but Indiana's stream-of-consciousness flow of words keeps the momentum going.

He manages to take potshots at Dominick Dunne, John Gregory Dunne, Joan Didion, Leslie Abramson, Scientologists, the Chateau Marmont, and a ton of other semi-recognizable names, but figuring out who's who isn't all that important.

Those who are repelled by gay sex and the demimonde probably should stay away. (...)