Customer Reviews

Walk of Fame

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

 

 

To buy or not to buy? -- or to borrow from the library? Buy this one. Hilarious and poignant, it's one of the best reads I've ever had. Ever.

Average-guy, history buff, overweight financial writer Tom Webster, who bills himself as Tom The Okay (as compared to his heroes Alexander the Great and William the Conqueror) is about to get a taste of celebrity. "The Vulture," a pop-culture magazine, assigns him to concoct a scheme -- any scheme -- so fabulous that it will gain him instant fame. His mission: keep the scam a secret from everyone and keenly observe the ways his new-found celebrity status changes the way he's treated by everyone from his best friend to his doorman and all the hangers-on in between.

Tom does put together a fantastic scheme. He becomes obscenely famous. The reactions of those around him are positively delicious. Especially satisfying are the stunned responses of his ex-wife and of his best friend (who also happens to be the ex-wife's new squeeze). Krum is a wonderful suck-you-in writer and the reader shares Tom's marvelous adventure in full. Krum also has a magnificent sense of humor and the pages positively rollick. Warning: don't pick it up on a night you hope to get to sleep early.

Tom doesn't escape fame's hell -- the Tabloid ambushes in the men's room, the sordid rumors of wrongdoing, the foisting of designer clothing freebies that make him look like "the love child of Keith Richards and Queen Victoria." Despite the fantastic happenings, the book always rings true. A most satisfying read that leaves you with astute observations of a culture gone celebrity mad. I can't wait for Krum's next book.

Think you can handle the media pressure following your single appearance on "Survivor?" Their names in the gossip columns, reporters digging through their trash, rumors and innuendo flying about. Your personal life will constantly be examined, reexamined, and every facet of your life will be painfully detailed. This is not an easy task as shown by Debb Eaton during the finale. For her, the scrutiny she faced was not worth the three days she spent in the Outback. In her book, "Walk of Fame," Sharon Krum takes a deft jab at the world of manufactured celebrities and the media that feeds into them. It's a handbook for all budding superstars who want reality TV to be their next step to stardom.

Tom Webster is an unassuming writer for a financial magazine whose love of history has left him wondering if he shot a president if anyone would know who he was. His wife left him a year ago for his best friend and his weekly 800-word column hasn't won him fame or fortune but all of that is about to change. For $100,000, Webster must make himself into an overnight celebrity and then write an article detailing his meteoric rise to stardom - exposing himself as a fraud while simultaneously exposing the dark underbelly of the media machine. Aligning himself with Hollywood bombshell Alexandra West (who feels she is in need a makeover in order to be taken seriously by the Hollywood machine), the duo become the topic of conversation in gossip columns all over the country. In turn, his mother worries, his friend (yes, the one who stole his wife) fumes, his wife seethes, and the public hungers. The offers of book and television deals come fast and furious as well as the comely smiles and winks from women that wouldn't have given him a second look prior to Alexandra West.

Sharon Krum deftly writes through the voice of a man. So well, in fact, you forget that it's a woman writing the novel. There are several laugh out loud moments when the utterly unexpected happens and several moments when you actually feel for Tom. Has he gotten himself in over his head? "Walk of Fame" is a wonderful expose on the power of the media to take an ordinary man and make him into a star. Not only does the fame affect the person, but their friends and family as well. The pressure that all quarters feel is overwhelming as the media clamors for more information about the lowly financial columnist who is now the talk of the nation. The cynicism with the search for fame and the problems it brings shows the barebones reality of being a celebrity. This book truly answers the question, "At what cost fame?"

So, before you send in that application to be a contestant on the next reality show, check out "Walk of Fame," currently available in bookstores and on Amazon.com. Know what you are in for before it actually happens.

Once I got started, I found I was reading and reading and reading. Something very rare for me!! I haven't gone through a book so quickly since reading James Clavell many years ago with something as funny as Tom Sharpe!!! I wish I could be Tom Webster!

Although written by a woman, it is not apparent in the reading. She seems to get into the male psyche very well. Like any book you enjoy, you just don't want it to end. What happens next???

It's just a lot of fun to read, what more can I say!!

The first three chapters of this book delve into the personality and psyche of the main character. I had to push to make it through these pages, because everything could easily have been summed up in a few pages. The guy is dull and boring, he went to Yale (which comes up far too often throughout the book...we got it the first time), and his wife left him for his best friend. Seriously, by the end of Chapter 3, with all his whining, I could see why she left him.

That being said, once you get into Chapters 4 and 5, the book definitely gets better. The plot is interesting and you keep guessing how it is going to end, you just have to really force yourself to get to those chapters.

So, overall, it wasn't terrible but it didn't warrant more than a mediocre rating. The author's other book, The Thing About Jane Spring, is better.

If Bridget Jones could only meet Tom Webster, the main character of WALK OF FAME, she'd be writing Bridget Jones Webster's Diary! Tom Webster is the man Bridget and every other single woman is looking for. And he is looking for you! His search ultimately takes him on the rollercoaster ride of his life to fame and riches. This first novel is a hilarious, delicious, roman a clef that is destined to be the Beach Read of 2001! Some might think I'm a bit biased being Ms. Krum's literary agent but after the book was a bestseller when first published in Australia last year and a critical hit in the UK this year, with foreign editions coming out all over the world and Harold Ramis producing the film version with Tony Goldwyn (A WALK ON THE MOON, SOMEONE LIKE YOU) directing the picture for Twentieth Century Fox, production to start next Fall, I think the verdict is in -- WALK OF FAME is absolutley fabulous! Sharom Krum writes so convincingly in a man's voice that many publishers and filmmakers thought she was a man when I first presented the book. Only after I showed her beautiful photograph did people believe that this young talented woman could capture so authentically the voice of Tom Webster. WALK OF FAME is a witty and wise cautionary tale about what happens to a nobody who becomes a somebody overnight. With a sharp eye and keen sense of our contemporary , zany, preposterous obsession with fame, Krum creates a character who we can root for and adore. Plus it's really fun to read from a true expert (Krum is a celebrity journalist)what goes on behind the scenes. WALK OF FAME is a how-to book about getting famous. If you loved BRIDGET JONES DIARY, HIGH FIDELITY, PRIMARY COLORS -- then you'll love WALK OF FAME.

This is a decent book -- strictly decent -- sheds little in the way of light onto the cult of celebrity that keeps popping up in first fiction. Specifically, a novel a few years ago called Fake Liar Cheat by Tod Goldberg handled the subject of unwitting fame in a funny, dark way that this novel does not yet quite approach. The sense is that the author likes the scene and aches for the acceptance herself. No one wants to read a book that seems counterintuitive to the author's true goals. The book does serve as a decent beach read but fails to strike new ground. If you want the primers, get Fake Liar Cheat, or Day of the Locust or even Why Sammy Ran.