THE BONES
A hysterically scathing first novel about ambition and its discontents. Frank Bones is a self-destructive, take-no-prisoners, bad boy comic whose recent stage stunt with a firearm has cost him his audience and his bookings. Back at the bottom rung, Frank has no choice but to take his gigs where he can get them until, by virtue of a Hollywood miracle, he gets a call from his manager. A network has offered Frank his own sitcom, but there’s a catch: has to play an Eskimo.
Desperate, Frank calls on Lloyd Melnick, a long lost acquaintance whose position on the smash hit The Fleishman Show has made him the hottest comedy writer in town. If Lloyd signs on as the head writer, Frank can have any kind of show he wants. But Lloyd is tired of his gilded trappings ⏤ the network job, the Brentwood mansion ⏤ and his social-climbing wife has left him mystified and unmoored. He would trade it all in for just a sliver of Frank’s notorious recklessness or artistic integrity. When Lloyd turns Frank down, the consequences involve a crashed Hummer, corrupt police officers, enraged ex-husbands, and a high-speed chase to Mexico.
A brilliant satire, The Bones is a stunning debut that reveals, in all its hilarity and ache, the dark heart of comedy.
“The Bones is a portrait of the artist who would never dream of choosing the road to recovery over the road to ruin.”
“Witty, sharp and surprisingly engaging… It takes a fairly manic imagination to come up with an animatronic walrus in the first place, and it takes real talent – and something like compassion – to get the reader to care about the guy who’s riding it… Greenland has serious skills.”
“A pitch-perfect sendup of Hollywood’s endemic self-importance...brilliantly acid narrative...the book’s pace is fast, furious, and fun...the pace of this raucous thrill ride never slackens.”
“A laugh-out-loud satire and page-turner with a big-bang ending… A remarkable debut.”
“Savagely funny…one of the most perceptive and flat-out hilarious novels about the city’s brutal Darwinism, a book that makes you cringe through your laughter-induced tears.”
“With gleeful insider knowledge, TV and film writer Greenland sends up the conventions of the business, taking potshots at trophy wives, exorbitant salaries, palatial estates, and, most especially, comedy writers. Employing both broad strokes (a vengeful Frank drives a yellow Hummer through Lloyd’s living room) and polished, extremely funny one-liners, Greenland takes readers on an entertaining, behind-the-scenes tour of sitcoms and their socially maladroit, dyspeptic creators.”
