Vertical: the follow-up to Sideways [Kindle Edition]

Rex Pickett (Author)

Book Description

The follow-up novel to the blockbuster Sideways tracks the continuing story of Miles Raymond and his buddy Jack. It's seven years later. Miles has written a novel that has been made into a wildly successful movie, and the movie has changed his life. Jack, contrarily, is divorced, has a kid, and is on the skids. Phyllis, Miles's mom, has suffered a stroke that's left her wheelchair-bound and wasting away in assisted-living. She desperately wants to live with her sister in Wisconsin. When Miles gets invited to be master of ceremonies at a Pinot Noir festival in Oregon, he hatches a harebrained road trip. With Jack as his co-pilot, he leases a handicapped-equipped rampvan, hires a pot-smoking Filipina caretaker and, with his mother's rascally Yorkie in tow, they take off for Wisconsin via Oregon's fabled Willamette Valley, where Miles is Master of ceremonies of the International Pinot Festival. It is a road novel for the smart set and wine lover, and anything but predictable.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Vertical -- Rex Pickett's long-anticipated sequel to his now iconic Sideways -- had me alternately laughing and crying through this hilarious, heartbreaking and ultimately moving meditation on Fame, Friendship and Family. Vertical managed to break my heart and then put it back together again, piece by piece ... and should abolish any lingering doubts whether the author just got "lucky" with Sideways. This is a work to be both admired and savored like the great Willamette Valley Pinots Miles exults over." --Marco Mannone, Forth Magazine

"Vertical" is an often over-the-top, sometimes poignant, always entertaining story peppered throughout with impenetrably obscure but colorfully descriptive and eminently accurate adjectives... . What happens on the trip north through California accounts for much of the hilarious, ludicrous and outrageous action..Rex Pickett has not let us down. --Kark Klooster, Oregon Wine Press

"Sideways," ....is arguably the most influential wine-themed book that became a film in American history. The film Sideways grossed $250 million... and people are still debating whether it alone caused Pinot Noir sales to spike, or was merely a factor in the variety's astonishing success. Now we have the follow up story in Vertical..." --Steve Heimoff, Wine Enthusiast

Rex Pickett shows that his gift for creating wildly funny scenes is quite intact... The book is laugh-out-loud funny. --Paul Jameson, New York Journal of Books

About the Author

Rex Pickett is a screenwriter and novelist living in Santa Monica, CA. His novel "Sideways" was made into the movie of the same title, directed and co-adapted by "Election" and "About Schmidt" filmmaker Alexander Payne. "Sideways" garnered over 350 prestigious awards from various critics and awards organizations, including, most notably, the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It recently was voted as one of 101 Greatest Screenplays of All Time by the Writers Guild of America. Rex's script "My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York" was the basis for the Barbara Schock-directed AFI film which won the 2000 Oscar for Best Live Action Short. He is currently writing a comedy series for HBO entitled "The Nose." "Vertical" is his second novel.

Product Details

• File Size: 795 KB
• Print Length: 415 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0615392180
• Publisher: Loose Gravel Press; 1 edition (September 1, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004H1TM2K
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,019 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 35 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The SIDEWAYS journey continues in new and surprising ways... December 31, 2010

By Marco Critic

Format:Kindle Edition

If you ever wanted to continue riding along with Miles and Jack as they drink fine wines and sleep with sultry women, "Vertical" definitely delivers. But Rex Pickett doesn't merely retread the same terrain as he did in "Sideways", he sets his story on existential fire, deconstructs it, and then boldly shoves it into uncharted emotional territory for himself and his alter-ego, Miles Raymond. If a "sequel" is technically just more of something, then "Vertical" does not qualify. Life is drastically different for Miles this time around, who is reeling from his success as a writer who's book became a hot movie (sound familiar?). In "Sideways" Miles was dogged by his failures, now Miles is dogged by his success and its trappings: drowning in all the Pinot and p---y he could ever hope for. Like Icarus before him, Miles is flying too close to the sun and his proverbial wings are melting. Between chugging from spit-buckets before cheering crowds and engaging in whirlwind threesomes, he's quickly losing touch with reality. A reality that becomes impossible to ignore when he chooses to rescue his ailing mother from her nursing home. His mission: to emcee a hedonistic wine festival in Oregon en route to depositing his mother in Wisconsin to live out her final days. Easier said than done, to say the least.

Yes, Miles and Jack are back, loaded up on wine and hitting the West Coast asphalt (along with an eternally-stoned Filipina caretaker and his mother's pesky dog). Only now, Jack is the loser going nowhere fast with his life (divorced, jobless) and Miles is the wild womanizer, a role-reversal that offers much insight into both characters, and a lot of laughs.... Once again, Miles sets out on a road trip with the best of intentions, only to have them backfire in all the right ways, setting an unpredictable domino-effect into motion that ultimately makes him a better person in the end. If "Sideways" was about sending off a best friend in style to get married, then "Vertical" is about sending off a parent to die with some semblance of dignity. In both cases, Miles is undergoing a personal transformation despite focusing all his efforts on others. Like life, "Vertical" is not a comedy nor a drama -- it is decidedly both, and with potent effect. I laughed out loud on several occasions (the ever-incorrigible Jack continues to get himself into horrible-yet-hilarious predicaments) and cried twice toward the end. The author is able to provoke this spectrum of emotions because he realizes that at the end of every lustful bacchanal, there is an existential hangover that must be dealt with. These days, it's hard to find fictional prose that has the courage to embrace subject matter pertaining to actual human beings. Let's face it: when our art is designed purely for escapism, we ultimately end up escaping our own humanity. Rex Pickett knows this all too well, and delivers -- more than just a sequel -- a bittersweet meditation on Fame, Friendship and Family that is not to be missed. Read more ›

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Virtually unreadable, a far cry from Sideways March 22, 2012

By Rob in CM

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I can only assume that the people who raved about Vertical saw the movie Sideways, and did not read the book Sideways. I saw this with all sincerity - the man who wrote Sideways is not the man who "wrote" Vertical. Vertical reeks of laziness, over-editing, and dumbing-down for a larger audience. Nothing is left to the imagination, the book kills you word by unnecessary word. Despite the fact that Miles and Jack have been friends for many, many years, the book is loaded with unnecessary and completely unrealistic dialogue. It is sappy and dull. The sex scenes are contrived. Miles lurches between rapture and despair in the same paragraph, and yet you never, ever get a clear understanding of why or how this happens. Everything is improbable, and the book contains nothing of the raw humor and originality of Sideways. The endless fabulous wines, all just splendiferous and all described virtually the same way, bored the hell out of me. The entire scene at Foxen was completely unbelievable and utterly ridiculous. There was nothing even remotely interesting, despite the utterly contrived and ridiculously over-the-top antics that weigh this junker down.

Before you condemn my review as bitter or unfair, compare any random page from Sideways to any random page from Vertical. They were NOT written by the same person. Certainly, Pickett came up with the story, but he called it in, and let it be slaughtered by writing assistants and editors.

Vertical is a terrble book, and I want my money back. Is that possible when you buy the Kindle edition?

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars On the Road Again March 1, 2011

By Ace1333

Format:Paperback

Miles and Jack are back on the road, this time venturing to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, to again chase their quaffable dragon, Pinot Noir. And I couldn't be happier to read about it!

Vertical, Rex Pickett's follow up to his acclaimed debut novel Sideways, is a rewarding read for anyone who loved the Sideways novel or the film adaptation. Lovers of the movie will delight in imagining how Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church and Virginia Madsen will play the scenes of Vertical, and lovers of the novel will enjoy seeing how the true characters (as the Miles and Jack of the novel differ greatly from the ones in the movie) have grown, matured, and in some cases regressed, since that fateful trip to Santa Ynez.

Not to be left out, Oenophiles and casual wine lovers get their due, as Rex treats the reader to a handy primer on Willamette Valley Pinot Noir, and a few further lessons about the wine world of Central Coast California.

What I enjoy most about Rex Pickett's work is how much of himself you can read into his characters. Rex's choice to parallel his own life, by having Miles find success by writing a novel that is, ostensibly Sideways, and have it achieve the same film success as the Alexander Payne movie, is a master stroke. Rex gets to comment on the compromise-laden reality of Hollywood, how when movies are made into books, the two entities become interchangeable, and, for better or worse, how the author of the novel must accept what the film and filmmaker turn the book into. More importantly, knowing what we know about how similar real life and the world of the novel are, we get the added bonus (read: "salacious joy") of wondering just how much of what we are reading actually happened to Rex....

In Vertical, Miles has written the novel Shameless, watched an independent filmmaker turn it into a hit movie, and has since ridden the success of the franchise to new found wealth and more interestingly, respect in the wine world. This respect becomes both the boon and bane of Miles's existence.

What Vertical explores in a way Sideways barely touched on, is the simple fact that Miles is an alcoholic. Not simply a guy who likes the grape on occasion, this is a man who cannot function without alcohol. He drinks to wake up, he drinks to go to sleep; he drinks to calm his nerves, and he drinks when he is calm. With his newfound stardom, Miles is invited to host and speak at wine events, giving him instant access to an endless supply of the best wine money can buy. Unfortunately, this is like giving an addict the keys to a meth house. Or giving Charlie Sheen Internet access.

While the novel is materially about another road trip for Miles and Jack, with the ultimate destination this time being the delivery of Miles's stroke-addled mother to her sister in Wisconsin, the real plot is Miles's struggle to come to terms with his alcoholism. While the first half appears to be simply another wild and wacky ride for our favorite drinkers, the second half of the book takes a turn to darker, more rewarding places, as Miles begins to sober up and see the world with clear eyes. This is where the reader will find the true treasure of Vertical.

The wine notes are interesting and the bacchanalia of the IPNC are amusing, but the development of Miles's relationship with his Mother is heartbreaking, and gives further insight into the life of our author, Rex. Alcoholics aren't made, they're created; it's with a dawning realization of anger that Miles sees his dependence on alcohol (and subsequent emotional and romantic problems) may be hereditary and out of his hands. His yearning to know about his past and understand his dying mother are a far cry from his Sideways days of stealing money from his Mother on her birthday. This is a Miles who is desperate to make sense of his life, after the rollercoaster Shameless (nee Sideways) has put him thru. It's a journey that is central to all man's questions: who am I, where did I come from, what can I control? Readers will find themselves relating to this part of the book more than anything Miles or Jack do in pursuit of great wine.

If Sideways is a guidebook for how to fall down in the face of struggle, Vertical is surely a story about how to get up and stand tall in the wake of that struggle. While I don't know if Rex plans his titles so thematically, if he doesn't it's simply a further testament to his talents as a writer, and his gift of creating complex, fascinating characters that readers can love, admonish, relate to, rebel against, and ultimately respect.

Vertical is a wonderful book, and I urge you seek it out. Read more ›

More About the Author

Rex Pickett is a novelist and a screenwriter living in Santa Monica, CA. His new novel "Vertical" is a follow-up to his novel "Sideways" -- from which the critically-acclaimed Alexander Payne film was made -- and will be available September, 2011. Visit him on his Web site at: rexpickett.com.