Word [Mass Market Paperback]

Coerte V. W. Felske (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2000

Callie Carlson has spent her life at odds with the sea. Growing up on the Florida Straits, she blames the Atlantic for her mother's and father's death and the enticement of her younger brother Jeff whom she has practically raised -- the only family member left to her now. When Jeff goes out in a storm, Callie is sure that the sea will finally steal the last of her blood ties. Her frantic waiting and watching on the docks draws the attention of her neighbor, Chase Mattingly.

Chase, a swarthy ex-SEAL turned diver, is in a maelstrom of his own. While his body recovers from the pain and rigors of the bends, the result of a recent diving accident, his mind is demonized by encroaching shadows in the night that play tricks on his eyes. Yet, that afternoon he finds it within himself to reach out to Callie...

When Callie's brother Jeff at long last returns safe with a salvaged boat in tow, and that boat turns out to be the scene of a murder, Callie and Chase find they must join forces to protect the young man -- from the law, and from the criminals who think he knows to much. Chase agrees, once he realizes the salvaged boat was found in the same spot on the ocean that his mysterious diving accident occurred. Caught between the danger and madness of the sea, Callie and Chase find they have only each other to cling to as they unravel the danger that threatens them all.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Heyward Hoon is yet another brilliant but uncommercial and unproduced screenwriter careening around L.A. looking for a life amidst the cliches. His tale?both itinerary and people?is woefully familiar stuff: Hollywood newcomer strikes Faustian bargain in exchange for entree into inner circle. It's winningly told, though, with often ferocious humor, including a fresh, funny argot (e.g., "Wams" are waitress-actress-models). But everything goes soft for a happy, disappointing ending that would have shamed the fictional scripter. Felske had a better time of it in his previous The Shallow Man (Crown, 1995). Recommended for larger fiction collections.?David Bartholomew, NYPL, New York
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

For all of his mastery of the L.A. scene, we are taken by surprise to discover, 50 pages into the novel, that Heyward's primary income comes from his day job as a temporary filling clerk. Both his fortunes changes when Sydney Swinburn, head of Novastar Studios, takes him under his wing.

Swinburn is impressed by Heyward's social ease with beautiful women, and he makes a pact with him. In exchange for lessons on how to successfully score with women, he will let Heyward stay in a bungalow on his estate and encourage him as a screenwriter.

The only rule: He must keep his hands off Teal, the beautiful woman who also lives on his estate and who, of course, is the only women Heyward really wants.

Like Peter Farrelly's THE COMEDY WRITER, Michael Tolkin's THE PLAYER, and Peter Lefcourt's THE DEAL, WORD is a worthy new member of the growing genre of Hollywood novels in which idealistic would-be screenwriters and filmmakers experience disillusionment as they come up against the madly illogical Hollywood system, in which liars, con artists and charlatans occupy almost all of the positions of power. -- R. Hunter Garcia, USA Today, January 7, 1999

Masterfully bitter story in the Bruce Wagner/Michael Tolkin mode with a screenwriter hero who sneers at de rigeur Hollywood happy endings but is provided with one by his author (THE SHALLOW MAN, 1995).

Language is all this novel downloads - a torrent of L.A. buzzwords and insider cynicism unmatched since Odets and Lehman's SWEET SMELLS OF SUCCESS took on Manhattan's nightlife. As with Tony Curtis's seedy Sidney Falco, Felske pumps Heywood Hounestein so full of film babble he's ready to burst. To insecure but WASPish Heywood, who's written scripts on spec, with not one green-lighted, and who must tar everyone around him with is own shrunken sense of self, and leading man is dismissed as "Starman," struggling actors as "Strugs," and pretty faces with few goals as "8x10s." When Heywood - accompanied by his beautiful but alcoholic arm piece, Baby Garbo - meets mega-mogul Sydney Swinburn, he sees a way of perhaps getting his masterpiece, the script of his Age of Astonishment, sold at last. A wonderfully literate script, Sydney says, but, sadly, uncommercial, and he is in the business to make money. Still, he sees in Heywood a bookish ladies' man who can bring into this boorish super-producer's life just what he needs to fill a void: intimacy with the type of woman he has always challenged himself to attain. They strike a Faustian bargain to help each other as Sydney attends Heywood's charm school. Heywood, however, must not pursue Sydney's sought-after and mysterious Teal. When Heywood and Teal find each other irresistible, Sydney, the fearsome dark lord, assures Heywood's destruction in Hollywood.

Well, it's not Marlowe or Goethe, and cynics may snap their fangs at that big-bucks ending, but for film lovers the Hell-A hypechat will flick all of your fuses. -- Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 1998 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing (March 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446609005
• ISBN-13: 978-0446609005
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,748,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Coerte V.W. Felske was born in New York City and grew up in Manhattan
and Quogue, Long Island. He attended Bronxville High School and received
his Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth College. He did his graduate
work in film directing and screenwriting at Columbia University. The Shallow
Man, originally published in 1995, was his first novel. His second novel, Word,
came out in 1998 followed by The Millennium Girl in 2000 and Scandalocity in 2010. (For in-depth biography go to coertefelske.com) In 2008, the author established his independent online literary imprint, The Dolce Vita Press, founded in conjunction with Amazon.com, to publish and distribute his books. The imprint's inaugural publication was The Shallow Man: 15th Anniversary Edition released in September, 2009 followed by the author's first new novel in eight years, Scandalocity, released in May, 2010. Both are now available on Kindle.

Scandalocity (defined as "the speed at which scandal measured in velocity can turn you into a star,") is a sexy psychological thriller for the social network generation. With Scandalocity Felske, known for his Zeitgeist fiction, takes on the Information Age, scandal sheets, and our tech-driven, media-consumed and celebrity-obsessed culture. His protagonist, Harry Starslinger, is an ADHD-addled online gossip reporter who gets embroiled in the investigation of his girlfriend's murder. There more passion and murder and Harry becomes the hunted one. The book has been termed "The Sweet Smell of Success" meets "Body Heat," and is a dramatic, twisting and turning, page-turner which includes all the new and fresh language, a veritable lexicon's worth, which have been the hallmarks of the author's inimitable life-in-the-fast-lane literature (like "scandalocity," he coined and brought the term "modelizer" into the daily vernacular). Scandalocity is the author's second Dolce Vita Press release. The Ivory Stretch, Felske's fifth novel, a blazing, fastastical road book which takes place in the American southwest, will be released by the DVP in May, 2011.

Though Felske had been writing extensively in the years since his last original publication he held off going to marketplace with the new material. The Dolce Vita Press was the reason. The author launched the DVP to have significant contact with readership, exercise creative control over his work, and to have the freedom to incorporate the talents of top photographers, graphic artists, and book jacket designers. (World renowned photographers and artists Peter Beard and Ellen von Unwerth shoot Felske's memorable covers, featuring supermodels Adriana Lima, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Irina Shayk.)

The Dolce Vita Press label derives from the Italian term "dolce vita," which translates to the "sweet life." Felske was influenced by Federico Fellini's cinematic masterwork, La Dolce Vita, which tells the tale of a carefree, decadent group of seemingly glamorous partiers, nightclubbers, and exotic women as they navigate their way through Rome's high society, all pursued by a dashing playboy paparazzo. The author has often referred to his literature as "dolce vita fiction," stories about nightclub impresarios, serial womanizers, fashionistas, fortunehunting women, entertainment business hopefuls, and scandal sheet writers, entrenched in a similar dolce vita circuitry; in essence, characters living modern versions of that illusory sweet life depicted in Fellini's film.

Felske has three more new works completed and coming soon from the DVP. His next, The Ivory Stretch, will be released in May, 2011, followed by Chemical/Animal, his second written in first person as a woman, in the spring of 2012, and the A Touch of Noir in 2013 (go to coertefelske.com for details). All Coerte V.W. Felske titles for The Dolce Vita Press are available at the author's Web site coertefelske.com, thedolcevitapress.com, as well as Amazon.com. To contact the DVP, request a review copy, or write to the author, please visit the author's Web site at coertefelske.com.

In other news, there are two cable television shows in the works, "Scandalocity" and "Millennium Girls" based upon the author's books of the same names. The author appeared in "Real Housewives of New York" in March, 2010 as the romantic interest for one of the "wives." Felske also penned the lyrics for the 2010 Billboard #1 hit dance song "Secret Love" for singer Kim Sozzi. Felske is represented by manager Brad Kaplan at Evolution Entertainment in Los Angeles (323-850-3232).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Witty, engaging, clever, June 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Word (Hardcover)

This book had me laughing out loud every few pages. It was a fun read -- I was looking forward to each next chapter.

You can feel Howard's dripping insecurity, the rut his life is in, the corner he's painted for himself. The characters are all vivid and believable, with the exception of Sidney perhaps.

This is not a heavy or deep book -- just a ton of fun and really clever.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommend, June 26, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Word (Mass Market Paperback)

First of all, I think it is very funny that everyone gave this book a great review except the two readers from Los Angeles, where this book is set! Maybe it hits too close to home for Angelenos who (I have found) overestimate their cultural and intellectual significance. As well as being completely full of themselves.
I read this book long before I came out to Los Angeles, and would like to read it again now that I have been here a few years. Back in a rural area of the East Coast, I thought it was a hilarious book that I could not put down. It is one of those books you are disappointed to have end. Sadly, some (a lot) of the book is true of the Hollywood scene.
Ok, so it's not some grand philosophical treatise, but it is a very witty and sharp view of Hollywood. I have read other Felske books, and they do not compare to clever writing of this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Complete God Send to All, October 7, 2002

By 

Jeet (U.K) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Word (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow! This novel blew me away. This is the 1st piece of Felske's work I have had the luck and pleasure to come across and without being too OTT I salute this man, he is just one of those writers whose work you rarely come across, you know, it's engaging, witty, intelligent without being promiscious, hip and so swallowing. The only other author who has caused such a reaction from me is Arthur Golden and his brilliant Memoirs of a Geisha. Read Word and don't look back.