We got an email in our box earlier this week from Chris Kerr, an Irish author whos new book "As Seen on TV" is a surreal satire about our TV Obsessed culture. One of the infulences from this book is Knight Rider!
Here is a book sample:
I have a problem. No one else can help. Except maybe the likes of Hannibal, Face, BA, Murdock, and hooray for Hollywood feminism, Triple A. Yep, I want to hire The A-Team. Call me ‘Howling Mad’--that’s one better than barking--if this here problem of mine doesn’t raise its bull-ugly head in the middle of Tuesday night, 24th April. There I am, in my Hollywood bed, experiencing a wakeful dream about selling a script to Spielberg himself. I’m pitching the learned-by-rote resume I say to everyone out here, even the people in my dreams. ‘My go-project is The A-Team, Mr Spielberg. The door to this was The Six Million Dollar Man movie--even though they got some A-hole to rewrite me and retitled it The Bionic Dude. The key to that door was my spec script Zombie Moon--it’s all about how Zylon, an experimental space-age gas, makes the international crew of astronauts on Moon Base Alpha die and come back as undead brain-eaters.’
This book is available from Amazon shipping February 10th, 2005.
Click on the link below to read the Press Release
PRESS RELEASE Embargoed until 10th February 2005
I LOVE IT WHEN A PLAN FALLS APART
Launch of new comic novel about TV reality and in-action heroes
As Seen on TV is a brilliant new novel by Irish writer Chris Kerr, to be published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson in February. Set in Miami and LA, it is a surreal satire of our TV-obsessed culture. Shot through with catch phrases, programme titles, and Hollywood look-a-likes, As Seen on TV is dark, funny and wonderfully absurd, with echoes of Kurt Vonnegut and Thomas Pynchon.
Kirk Rush is a struggling screenwriter addicted to the TV shows of the 70s, 80s and 90s. When he lands his dream job writing The A-Team movie, he really thinks his plan has come together. But that’s before he finds out that his little sister Denise has gone AWOL from her kidney dialysis treatment, in an attempt to commit assisted-suicide. With the help of KITTSCH, his Knight Rider car-cum conscience, Kirk is forced to choose between living his life like a badly scripted film and saving his sister from the clutches of the notorious Dr Death. He has a problem no one else can help. That is, except maybe the likes of Hannibal, Face, BA and Murdock.
Chris Kerr was born in 1971 - when The A-Team were still making a living as soldiers in Vietnam, rather than soldiers of fortune. He was brought up in Holywood, Northern Ireland, over 6000 miles from its LA namesake. As Seen on TV, his first novel, is based on a true story - Chris’ sister, Susan, suffered kidney failure four years ago, but like Denise in the novel, refuses a transplant. She remains on dialysis, trying to heal herself through alternative therapies. Chris is the Creative Writing Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds. He is currently not working on his second novel.
‘Kerr is a fine writer. Readers should pay close attention to him.’ Patrick McCabe (Twice short-listed for the Booker Prize)
‘As Seen on TV is such a realistic depiction of a struggling screenwriter's life, and the references so up-to-the-minute, that it could pass as an autobiography as much as a novel. Very funny, and perfect for any TV or film fan.’ Matt Thorne (Long-listed for the 2004 Mann Booker Prize)
As Seen on TV will be published as a trade paperback, priced £10.99 on 10th February, 2005. For more information, please contact Chris Kerr at chriskerr3@hotmail.com or Katie White at Weidenfeld & Nicolson (Orion Publishing) on 00 44 207 5204375.
