Writing for Love and Money

$22.95

A Novel
Kathrin Perutz
134 pages, 6 x 8.5
978-1-55728-212-5 (paper)
August 1991

 

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Partly a roman à clef, partly a paradic “novel-within-a-novel,” Writing for Love and Money is perhaps best described as a comic odyssey into the world of the bestseller, a tour guide for writing a blockbuster. Playfully weaving literary puns and allusions into an enthralling narrative, Perutz allows Kate, assisted by a host of “real” and fictional authors, to learn page by page the ingredients of popular fiction. While some critics may argue about the genre—is the book a novel? a memoir? an expose?—Perutz’s readers will agree that Writing for Love and Money is one of the funniest nonnovels, nonmemoirs, nonexposes they’ve read.

Kathrin Perutz has nine earlier novels and two nonfiction works to her name, and her short pieces have appeared in a wide range of publications as diverse as American Scholar, Harper’s, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and the New York Times. She sits on the PEN Executive Board and has been a fellow at both the MacDowell and Yaddo colonies and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She lives in Great Neck, New York.

“Charming, witty, painful, rueful, bouncy, candid, natural, and illuminating is this view of writing for money and surviving long enough to be able to tell us about it.”
—Norman Mailer

“Writing for Love and Money is a gem of truth about the creative and commercial aspects of writing. And it’s wonderful fun, besides.”
—Hilma Wolitzer