About face : a novel

About face A novel

William Giraldi

Book - 2022

"A tragicomic novel of a fame-obsessed American society yet again on the brink. Evoking such classics as Elmer Gantry and The Day of the Locust, William Giraldi's About Face boldly transfers the perennial literary themes of celebrity, ambition, and obsession to twenty-first-century Boston. There we meet Val Face, a charismatic self-help guru who captivates multitudes with his uncanny ability to heal adherents using only the power of his words, the mysterious touch of his hands, and the transcendent beauty of his face. Assigned to write a profile of Val Face during his much-hyped New England tour, thirty-year-old impoverished journalist Seger Jovi pens a brutal hatchet job. But Seger, at once curious and incredulous, is soon sucked... into the mystic's vortex of fame, becoming a devotee himself as he contends with the machinations and absurdities of Face's many protectors, from beefcake bodyguards to helicoptering handlers to Face's unwavering spouse, Nimble. At first unwilling to sacrifice his principles to fulfill his own ambition and rise from privation, then touched by Face's unexpected humanity, Seger oscillates between acting as Face's cynical foil and becoming his unlikely ally. Just as the exalted guru appears to be reaching the apex of his powers, danger threatens from the periphery in the form of an obsessive stalker who wants Face dead. To curb this stalker before he can do harm, Face's security team enlists the aid of Jackie Jaworski, an ex-Marine and resourceful Boston detective who moonlights as a novelist of thrillers. And so About Face, building to a denouement that will astonish readers, takes us into the convergence of violence and fame that has come to define so much of American popular culture over the last half-century. With its indelible array of characters, hypnotic pacing, and shocking conclusion-and "a mesmerizing prose style that is downright pyrotechnic in its brilliance" (Andre Dubus III)-About Face is a novel in the grand tradition that dances along the tenuous line between the sacred and the profane"--

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Subjects
Fame > Fiction.
Journalists > Fiction.
Stalkers > Fiction.
Novels.
Genres
Novels
Published
New York : Liveright Publishing Corporation, a division of W. W. Norton & Company [2022]
Language
English
Main Author
William Giraldi (author)
Edition
First Edition
Physical Description
373 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781324091356
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Valentino Detti knew when he was 10 that he was special. After surreptitiously discovering Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, the seed was planted. Years later, he feels called to manifest his destiny and adopts the moniker Val Face, mostly in homage to his movie-star looks. A Tony Robbins/Deepak Chopra hybrid but with chiseled features, he begins to proselytize on the streets, eventually catapulting to fame after a viral video captures his devotion-inspiring charisma. When an unambitious small-time journalist, Seger Jovi, pens a scathing profile in a Boston rag, he is subsequently called to meet with Face who offers Jovi a rare opportunity as his personal scribe. Jovi is a lovable doofus who provides a behind-the-scenes look at the artifice of our celebrity-obsessed culture while Val Face is the personification of our collective unrealized fantasies. Giraldi has a comic's flair for employing the precise word that allows his exuberant wordsmithing to land with a punch, skewering societal ills and the superficiality of an emperor in a bespoke suit. This is observational humor with a satirist's sword.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Giraldi (Busy Monsters) centers this fizzy caper on the relationship between a messiahlike guru and a bumbling journalist. After Seger Jovi publishes a searing critique of the self-help celebrity Val Face, Face's wife, Nimble, retaliates by offering Seger the compromising privilege of serving as Face's official chronicler. The lucrative deal comes with the condition that everything Seger writes must be vetted, and Seger agrees to the Faustian bargain. In his narration, Seger describes Face as gorgeous and charismatic: "the face alone, in its masculine beauty and range, could whisper or holler whatever inner calm or warp needed vent." Face's handlers are myriad and absurd: Vera, Valerie, Veronica, and bodyguard Mario, a Barry Manilow fan. All of them treat Seger with bored disdain during his attempts to interview them, except for the ever unavailable Face. But when a stalker named Bill threatens Face, Seger's the only one who can recognize him, making him indispensable to the crew's effort to catch Bill. Giraldi is known for wacky narrative voices, and here the volume is turned way up. The story is ridiculous by design, the silly and obvious metaphors coming fast and furious. Though the jokes eventually wear thin, they make for an apt commentary on America's obsession with celebrity. Agent: David Patterson, Stuart Krichevsky Literary. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

In this latest from Giraldi (Hold the Dark), a Boston writer pen-named Seger Jovi publishes a highly critical magazine piece on Val Face, a creation of East Boston's Valentino Detti, who parlays his charisma, godlike looks, and Kahlil Gibran--influenced aphorisms into a highly successful and lucrative career as a self-help guru. Soon after, Jovi receives a call requesting his presence at the hotel where Face is staying on his tour, to meet with the guru himself. Surprisingly, Jovi is offered a job as the tour's official scribe. Poverty eclipses scruples for Jovi, and he takes the position, becoming a member of Face's entourage. Jovi, a product of Boston's Italian North End, soon finds some common ground with Face, although the charismatic manages the relationship between them with alternating intimacy and distance. At Face's show in Boston, they encounter a stalker, the nondescript Bill, who follows them around New England, first calling in a bomb threat to a show in Maine. When the tour circles back to Boston, Bill precipitates an event that will forever change Face's life. VERDICT An insightful, wild, and wildly appealing romp that zeros in on the all-consuming nature of celebrity in the social media--fueled environment of the 21st century.--Lawrence Rungren

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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