Successful, gorgeous, and beloved by everyone you know, the Underminer remembers your every foolish ambition and humiliating mistake--and never fails to remind you. The Underminer makes you feel suicidal. But the Underminer is your friend…Mike Albo and Virginia Heffernan do us all a public service by capturing the elusive evils of an age-old archetype. To understand and resist your toxic friend, you need The Underminer.
The Underminer
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"A treasure.wickedly funny.Studded with comic gems that beg to be read out loud." (Chicago Tribune )
"An insincere, name-dropping predator with a rise so meteoric that `you' feel like crawling into your sad little apartment and eating gallons of ice cream right out of the carton while sniffling over reruns of old Bette Davis movies." (New York Times Book Review )
"A character that is so malicious, so insensitive and sadistic, that we can only gape horror-struck as every venomous phrase rolls off her tongue." (Rocky Mountain News )
"A psychological predator of the highest order. A viper cloaked in velvet. The Shaquille O''Neal of schadenfreude." (Boston Globe )
"An ego-skewering, passive-aggressive blowhard of indeterminate gender, surfing annoyingly along the breaking waves of pop and consumer culture-from dot-com to New Age, from hip-hop to a yurt in Afghanistan-always on top and armed with a put-down." (New York Times )
"The `friend' who somehow manages to turn every compliment into an incredibly subtle insult, thus making you wonder whether you are truly the most neurotic person in all of Manhattan-or if your friend is just, well, evil." (New York Post )
"The person in your life who always does things before you, better than you, and far more profitably than you. The kind of person who manages to express that she cares about you in a way that makes you want to kill yourself." (Chicago Sun-Times )
"The Underminer is a small voice whispering in your ear, `Read me.'" (Newsday ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"An insincere, name-dropping predator with a rise so meteoric that `you' feel like crawling into your sad little apartment and eating gallons of ice cream right out of the carton while sniffling over reruns of old Bette Davis movies." (New York Times Book Review )
"A character that is so malicious, so insensitive and sadistic, that we can only gape horror-struck as every venomous phrase rolls off her tongue." (Rocky Mountain News )
"A psychological predator of the highest order. A viper cloaked in velvet. The Shaquille O''Neal of schadenfreude." (Boston Globe )
"An ego-skewering, passive-aggressive blowhard of indeterminate gender, surfing annoyingly along the breaking waves of pop and consumer culture-from dot-com to New Age, from hip-hop to a yurt in Afghanistan-always on top and armed with a put-down." (New York Times )
"The `friend' who somehow manages to turn every compliment into an incredibly subtle insult, thus making you wonder whether you are truly the most neurotic person in all of Manhattan-or if your friend is just, well, evil." (New York Post )
"The person in your life who always does things before you, better than you, and far more profitably than you. The kind of person who manages to express that she cares about you in a way that makes you want to kill yourself." (Chicago Sun-Times )
"The Underminer is a small voice whispering in your ear, `Read me.'" (Newsday ) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
Mike Albo is a writer and performer who has brought his comedic monologues to venues all over the country and abroad. His first novel, Hornito, was published in 2000.
Virginia Heffernan, who writes with Albo for his performances, is a television critic for the New York Times.
Virginia Heffernan, who writes with Albo for his performances, is a television critic for the New York Times.
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More About the Author
Hi there interested person:
I am a writer and performer living and loving in Brooklyn. My first novel, HORNITO: MY LIE LIFE, was published by HarperCollins in October 2000. My second novel, THE UNDERMINER (co-written with Virginia Heffernan) was published by Bloomsbury USA in 2005. Now I am releasing THE JUNKET exclusively on Kindle for your pleasure. Check me out on mikealbo.com, on Twitter at "albomike" or on FaceBook...Below is a more extensive bio written in the 3rd person as if I had nothing to do with its creation:
Mike Albo has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, Elle Décor, Country Living, The Daily Beast, Out, The Village Voice, Details, and many other magazines and websites. He was a Senior Editor and Fashion Writer for Cargo Magazine from 2004-2006.
Albo wrote The Critical Shopper column for the New York Times from February 2007-October 2009. He has also had columns in Blackbook and Surface magazines, and wrote "Torascopes" for Heeb Magazine from 2005-2007. His love advice column in Out Magazine, "What's Your Problem?" appeared from 1998-2000. He also wrote horoscopes for Word.com (Horoscopes by Randy Lavender), from 1998-2000.
His fiction and essays have appeared in many anthologies, including The Worst Noel, Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys, Rejected and The Show I'll Never Forget. Selections of his "Junk Mail" poetry have appeared in the Tin House.
As a monologist and comedian, Albo has completed four critically acclaimed, sold-out solo shows: MIKE ALBO, SPRAY, PLEASE EVERYTHING BURST and MY PRICE POINT, as well as many solo performances and tours across the United States and Europe. Fast-paced, hilarious, highly emotional and punctuated with dance, his performances have been praised in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paper, Time Out, The Independent in London, The Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh Tribune, and the LA Times.
Selections of his work appear in EXTREME EXPOSURE: An Anthology Of Solo Performance Texts From The Twentieth Century (ed. by Jo Bonney). MY PRICE POINT won the award for Best Solo Performance by Independent Reviewers of New England in 2006.
I am a writer and performer living and loving in Brooklyn. My first novel, HORNITO: MY LIE LIFE, was published by HarperCollins in October 2000. My second novel, THE UNDERMINER (co-written with Virginia Heffernan) was published by Bloomsbury USA in 2005. Now I am releasing THE JUNKET exclusively on Kindle for your pleasure. Check me out on mikealbo.com, on Twitter at "albomike" or on FaceBook...Below is a more extensive bio written in the 3rd person as if I had nothing to do with its creation:
Mike Albo has written for the New York Times, The New Yorker, New York Magazine, GQ, Elle Décor, Country Living, The Daily Beast, Out, The Village Voice, Details, and many other magazines and websites. He was a Senior Editor and Fashion Writer for Cargo Magazine from 2004-2006.
Albo wrote The Critical Shopper column for the New York Times from February 2007-October 2009. He has also had columns in Blackbook and Surface magazines, and wrote "Torascopes" for Heeb Magazine from 2005-2007. His love advice column in Out Magazine, "What's Your Problem?" appeared from 1998-2000. He also wrote horoscopes for Word.com (Horoscopes by Randy Lavender), from 1998-2000.
His fiction and essays have appeared in many anthologies, including The Worst Noel, Girls Who Love Boys Who Love Boys, Rejected and The Show I'll Never Forget. Selections of his "Junk Mail" poetry have appeared in the Tin House.
As a monologist and comedian, Albo has completed four critically acclaimed, sold-out solo shows: MIKE ALBO, SPRAY, PLEASE EVERYTHING BURST and MY PRICE POINT, as well as many solo performances and tours across the United States and Europe. Fast-paced, hilarious, highly emotional and punctuated with dance, his performances have been praised in many publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paper, Time Out, The Independent in London, The Boston Globe, the Pittsburgh Tribune, and the LA Times.
Selections of his work appear in EXTREME EXPOSURE: An Anthology Of Solo Performance Texts From The Twentieth Century (ed. by Jo Bonney). MY PRICE POINT won the award for Best Solo Performance by Independent Reviewers of New England in 2006.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Smart, sharp and cruelly funny.,
By
This review is from: The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life (Hardcover)
Mike Albo creates enough brilliant monologue material for hopeful actors to last the next 20 years. Written in the voice of "The Underminer", you will instantly know this person, despise them, and wish for their quick death. The book is short (any longer and the voice could've grown repetitive), and sweet, but it never pulls any punches. Sure it's one note, but it's a great note. Send this book as a gift to your friends. Or better yet, give it to the Underminer in your life.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious, razor-sharp social satire,
This review is from: The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life (Hardcover)
After reading an excerpt in The New Yorker, I couldn't wait to get this book. It's spot-on satire--deceptively breezy (so difficult to pull off, but Albo does it perfectly), filled with passages you'll love to read out loud to your partner, but able to make you squirm as it begins to dawn that you're no slouch in the undermining category yourself.How funny is it? I laughed out loud over and over--while in a "patient's family waiting room" waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery (he's fine). Now that's funny. I immediately went out and got Hornito; can't wait to dive in.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comic Genius, Pure and Seething,
By Alice Rose (Tuxedo Park, New York) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life (Hardcover)
By turns haunting and hilarious, The Underminer is a 164-page bitchfest as you've never experienced. Or maybe you have. . . . Every few pages, I was stifling SHRIEKS of recognition. Truly. It was if authors Albo and Heffernan had snuck a peak at my personal life, uncovering all the demons in disguise, and one in particular. . . . My absolute favorite lines: "I mean maybe you're not feeling upset because your body is in a kind of indecision about how to handle grief" and "It's just so great how yoga has spread its influence across the four corners of America. Old people are doing it, fat people are doing it, retarded people are doing it. . . ." This is the perfect book for everyone who's ever felt as if his/her so-called friends were lording their success/money/fame/real estate coups/babies over them. Buy one for yourself, and another for your nemesis. . . .
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