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  1 Amy Falls Down: A Novel
Author: Willett, Jincy
 
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Class: Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
LC: PS3573
ISBN-13: 9781250028273
LCCN: 2013004051
Imprint: Thomas Dunne Books
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Pub Date: 07/09/2013
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $24.99
  Hardcover
Physical Description: 324 pages ; 22 cm H 8.44", W 5.93", D 1.22", 0.93 lbs.
LC Series:
Brodart Sources: Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
Bibliographies:
Awards: Library Journal Starred Reviews
Publishers Weekly Starred Reviews
Starred Reviews: Library Journal
Publishers Weekly
TIPS Subjects: Chick Lit
BISAC Subjects: FICTION / Women
FICTION / Humorous / Dark Humor
FICTION / Literary
LC Subjects: Life change events, Fiction
Women authors, Fiction
SEARS Subjects: Life change events, Fiction
Women authors, Fiction
Reading Programs:
 
Annotations
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 04/01/2013
Sometimes it takes smacking your head off a bird-bath to wake up the genius within. A writer who mostly teaches and hides away from the world, Amy Gallup falls down and gets quite the shock when her subsequent interview convinces the media she's a writing phenomenon. Soon Amy must choose whether to right some misconceived notions or write her way back to the life she always dreamed of. 336pp., Auth res: Escondido, CA
Starred Reviews:
Library Journal | 06/21/2013
Willett's previous book, The Writing Class, introduced readers to the wonderfully acerbic author/creative writing teacher Amy Gallup. That novel was a regular whodunit, but this sequel is not in the mystery genre at all. Rather, it is a lovingly gentle but thorough skewering of the current literary world, the media surrounding it, and the "authors-as-brands" who often populate it. The novel opens with Amy falling and hitting her head on a birdbath. Long afraid of doctors and hospitals, she doesn't immediately seek treatment but instead gives an interview to a local newspaper journalist-a young woman who's featuring Amy in a "whatever happened to" article. (Amy's debut novel at 22 was a tremendous success, but nothing in the resulting 40 years quite lived up to the potential promised by it.) Amy's incoherent ramblings set off a chain of events featuring her as a straight talker surrounded by pretentiousness. Verdict Funny and whip-smart about the modern book world, Willett's novel is also profound and touching on relationships, aging, and self-reflection. Absolutely recommended, whether or not you read The Writing Class, and especially if you're a voracious reader or a writer, a publisher, a critic, or a book blogger. [See Prepub Alert, 1/25/13.]-Amy Watts, Univ. of Georgia Lib., Athens. 336p. LJ Xpress Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013.
Publishers Weekly | 05/06/2013
Willett's hilarious follow-up to The Writing Class pulls no punches when it comes to current literary trends. Amy Gallup was once heralded as a fresh voice in fiction, but with her novels now long out of print, she's content with a quiet, anonymous life of leading workshops, keeping lists of great-sounding titles for stories she'll never write, and maintaining her sporadically updated blog. One afternoon, however, while working in her garden, Amy trips and cold-cocks herself on a birdbath. Still reeling from the head injury hours later, she gives a loopy interview to a reporter working on a series of local author profiles. The result goes viral, and suddenly Amy is a hot commodity on the literary pundit trail. She couldn't care less about being relevant or famous, which lends a refreshingly brutal honesty to her commentary on the radio, television, and lecture circuit. But her newfound notoriety also pushes Amy out of her comfort zone, forcing her to confront years of neuroses and an unexamined postwriting life. Willett uses her charmingly filterless heroine as a mouthpiece to slam a parade of thinly veiled literati and media personalities with riotous accuracy, but she balances the snark with moments of poignancy. (July). 336p. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2013.
Journal Reviews
BookPage | 07/01/2013
We readers can be greedy things. Mere books are not enough for us: We want the authors, too. We want their autographs, their photographs, handshakes, interviews. We want them to tell us all the secret things they didn't put in the book--we want it all, the entire package. And these days, they're more or less obligated to sell it to us. In her hilarious, merciless, entirely delightful new novel, Amy Falls Down, Jincy Willett digs into this phenomenon from several angles. Our protagonist, Amy Gallup, is a contentedly washed-up fiction writer in her 60s who spends most of her days teaching writing classes online from her California home. Then one day she trips in the garden, conks her head on a birdbath and proceeds to give a newspaper interview she doesn't remember doing. The interview, and Amy's intriguingly odd (because totally concussed) behavior during it, leads to newfound fame for the long out-of-print writer. "You're not gonna understand it, but you are gonna have to trust me," her agent tells her. "You're not just a writer now. You're a package." Amy finds the sudden attention at various points invasive, thrilling, oppressive, scary, sad and gross. Even as she resents the way in which a writer's work has come to include the roles of performer and media personality, Amy learns to make it work for her. Turns out, she has a knack for it. One of the many pleasures of Amy Falls Down is watching Amy venture out of her shell and have fun toying with the media, the publishing industry, her students and pretty much everyone else. She has nothing to lose, and no interest in impressing anybody; consequently, she has no filter, and she gets away with saying things others won't. When a writer suffers a bump on the head, her literary career gets an unexpected boost. Willett has many things in common with her protagonist, including that same amused befuddlement regarding the "packaging" of writers. By phone from her home in Escondido, California, where the Rhode Islander has lived since 1988, Willett talked about publicity, humor, David Sedaris and the curse of potential, among other things. Amy's biography matches Willett's in several ways: same age, similar geographical background, nearly identical smart-aleck websites. Both teach writing online. Some of the lines Amy spouts in the book turn up in Willett's interviews. The parallels are noticeable. "My feeling about using autobiographical material is, I'm completely free to use my own character, but not free to use anybody else's," Willett explains. "She's a lot like me, but that's it." Everything else is invented--and in fact, as Willett sees it, Amy actually "has nothing to do with me." "It's lazy, that's all," she explains. Using a character that doesn't need to be invented from whole cloth makes it easier for the author to spend her energy playing with ideas and themes. "The more you make things up, the more likely you are to discover things you didn't know about yourself," she says. "Whereas when you're actually working with what you know, what you're really doing is crystallizing things you've been turning over for a long, long time." This leads to fiction that engages in the world of ideas and arguments, Willett says. "Not that you have a message--because that's obnoxious." The goal has more to do with "exploring certain issues you think are important, and you want to see if you're right about them." Then, too, there's the fact that using a protagonist only slightly removed from oneself adds to the fun of Amy's unguarded venting, which focuses on the absurdities of the publishing world. "It was wonderful for me to be able to rant on and on about this stuff," Willett says. "She does sort of go on." Late in the novel, Amy ends a... Review exceeds allowable length. 336pg. BOOKPAGE, c2013.
Booklist | 07/01/2013
In this sequel to the events that ended Willett's The Writing Class (2008), erstwhile novelist turned online writing instructor Amy Gallup stumbles in her backyard just minutes before being interviewed for a where-are-the-has-beens-of-yesteryear article. It can only be assumed that her skull's brief contact with a concrete birdbath is what transformed Amy from an irascible wag to an insouciant wit. Whatever the cause, suddenly Amy is hot again. After the article goes viral, her former agent resurfaces, booking her on NPR and scoring profiles in mainstream media, and she's the A-list guest for literary panels discussing such egregious topics as "Whither Publishing?" Best yet, Amy's creative muse also reappears, and short stories spew forth as if out of the ether. It's a heady ride for the one-time recluse, showing her that, hey, maybe success isn't so bad after all. For anyone who has ever wondered what it's like to be an author, Willett's thinly veiled heroine provides a saucily irreverent look at the writing life. Haggas, Carol. 336p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2013.
Kirkus Reviews | 05/01/2013
Amy Gallup, 60, hasn't published a book in 20 years, and she's settled into a quiet life with her beloved basset hound, Alphonse. None too excited about a newspaper interview she's agreed to give, she trips, knocking herself out on the birdbath just hours before she's scheduled to play the role of has-been local writer. Oddly, she regains consciousness to see the reporter's car pulling out of her driveway. In the emergency room later, she has the distinct pleasure of reading her own interview--an interview she evidently gave without the assistance of a conscious, rational mind. Amy's cryptic, concussion-addled interview rejuvenates her career. Suddenly, her agent--chain-smoking, aggressive but kindly Maxine--is calling again, arranging appearances and pushing for new material. Her former writing students are back, too. After all, their crazed, knife-wielding former classmate (from Willett's The Writing Class, 2008) is now safely behind bars. The collection of friends and opponents surrounding Amy are flat characters bedazzled with quirks, but that doesn't quite make them quirky. Grudgingly, Amy goes on tour, battling wits with shrill, book-phobic radio hosts, twitter-bewitched moderators, new authors drunk on blogs and old authors drunk on scotch. Along the way, she confronts the demons of her past, including her buried grief for her late, gay husband, as well as her ambivalence about success. The skewering of the business of selling books--despite some hilarious scenes and Amy's dry humor--gets repetitive as Amy tirelessly defends real writing and debunks virtual book launches. Amy is endearing, yet it is difficult to remain curious about a heroine whose only interest is writing. Willett's skill in crafting zany scenes and Amy's acerbic wit are not enough to keep this novel afloat. 336pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2013.
Library Journal Prepub Alert | 01/28/2013
Since Willett's fey, popular novels include Winner of the National Book Award, it is perhaps no surprise that the protagonist of her latest book is a writer. Withdrawn, cranky Amy Gallup hasn't written much lately, but when she clonks her head on a birdbath after tripping in her own backyard, then follows through with a scheduled interview that ends up portraying her ramblings as sheer genius, Amy is suddenly a media hit. And she starts to write. With a reading group guide and lots of publicity. 336p. LJ Prepub Alert Online Review. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2013.
9781250028273,dl.it[0].title
Review Citations
New York Times Book Review | 07/07/2013