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This fresh, smart novel in the guise of a celebrity memoir probes the inner life of a mega-famous pop star.
Honestly, what amazes me the most with a lot of the people I meet is that they think they're so big. They think, ultimately, that the universe revolves around them. And I'm beginning to think that it's only when you live a life like mine―it's only when you're in a position where you don't even really own yourself, when you can't even really say that you're a citizen of any particular country―that you realize that we're all just tiny pieces of cosmic dust floating through the void until we disappear forever and we're never heard from again.
So begins the life story of our uber famous twenty-two year old narrator. A teen idol since he was twelve, when a video of him singing went viral, his star has only risen since. Now, haunted by the suicide of his manager-father, unsettled by the very different paths he and his his teenage love (and girl pop-star counterpart) "Mandy" have taken, and increasingly aware that he has signed on to something he has little control over, he begins to parse the divide that separates him from the "normal people" of the world.
Sneakily philosophical, earnest and funny, Justin Kuritzkes's Famous People is a rollicking, unforgettable look at the clash between fame and the human condition.
"Kuritzkes flawlessly strikes the right balance between searing and comedic as his narrator searches for the true meaning of being a normal person while being famous. This is an incisive and fresh debut." - Publishers Weekly
"A thoughtful, subtly structured exploration of fame and its discontents." - Kirkus Reviews
"Famous People is a hysterical, moving and uncanny portrait of premature fame. It perfectly captures a voice we rarely read: articulate but non-academic, profound but shallow, superior but curious. It's an extraordinary character, brilliantly conceived." - Jesse Eisenberg, Academy-award nominated actor and author of Bream Gives Me Hiccups
"Framed as a memoir, Famous People is told with a voice so real you'll have to remind yourself that it's a novel. Justin Kuritzkes has come up with something new in this, something relevant, maybe even prescient. This is a story fit for our times." - Nico Walker, author of Cherry
This information about Famous People was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Justin Kuritzkes was born in Los Angeles and lives in New York. Productions of his plays have been staged by The New Group, JACK, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. He is known on the internet for his "Potion Seller" video and for his pop album, "Songs About My Wife." He has been awarded residencies from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Edward F. Albee Foundation. Famous People is his first novel.
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