The Follower reminded me of Bret Easton Ellis' work, but
without a lot of the pretension. Starr's work has been moving
more and more toward having a mass appeal. He has specialized
in writing about shallow, callow, selfish characters, and
he's done it well, very well, in fact. For all her
cluelessness, I think Katie Porter is his most sympathetic
character ever, and I think this novel has the most
commercial appeal of anything he's written. If it does turn
out to be a big success, it will certaintly be well deserved
one.
>
> Very well put. The Tom Wolfe analogy is apt and I've
mentioned here
> previously. It certainly was true of his last two
books--Twisted City and
> Lights Out. Twisted City seemed like Jason imitating
Wolfe and eventually
> getting so good at it that Lights Out seemed like
Jason Starr imitating
> Tom
> Wolfe imitating Jason Starr. Like he was alternating
teaming up with Wolfe
>
> as well as Bruen.
>
> Aside from the obvious similarities to Bonfire of
the Vanities, there is
> another striking parallel to Wolfe in that, as Jason
becomes more
> successful, he writes characters that are further
and further up the
> social
> strata with each novel. It was like Wolfe writing
from the perspective of
> Leonard Berstein's high-rise apartment. I miss the
grittiness of Jason's
> early novels--the bars . . . the
racetrack.
>
> Jason, feel free to jump in here and defend
yourself.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
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