{"product_id":"loudermilk-isbn-9781593763909","title":"Loudermilk","description":"\u003cb\u003eThis \u003ci\u003eNew York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e Editors' Choice, is \"hilarious . . . a riotous success. Equal parts campus novel, buddy comedy and meditation on art-making under late capitalism, the novel is a hugely funny portrait of an egomaniac and his nebbish best friend\" (\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt’s the end of summer 2003. George W. Bush has recently declared the mission in Iraq accomplished, the unemployment rate is at its highest in years, and Martha Stewart has just been indicted for insider trading. Meanwhile, somewhere in the Midwest, Troy Augustus Loudermilk (fair-haired, statuesque, charismatic) and his companion Harry Rego (definitely none of those things) step out of a silver Land Cruiser and onto the campus of The Seminars, America’s most prestigious creative writing program, to which Loudermilk has recently been accepted for his excellence in poetry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLoudermilk, however, has never written a poem in his life.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWickedly entertaining, beguiling, layered, and sly, \u003ci\u003eLoudermilk\u003c\/i\u003e is a social novel for our time: a comedy of errors that deftly examines class, gender, and inheritance, and subverts our pieties about literature, authorship, art making, and the institutions that sustain them.\u003cb\u003eAn American Booksellers Association Indie Next Selection\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“This clever satire of writing programs exhibits, with persuasive bitterness, the damage wreaked by the idea that literature is competition.” ––\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e, Editors' Choice\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Funny, cerebral . . . Ives’s hyperbolic satire—her outsized, loquacious characters, her stylistic brio—lays bare the central fallacy of 'write what you know.' In one sense, we believe Ives is drawing from her own, all-too-real experience. And yet, with its ludic meta-fictionality and the self-conscious construction of characters, the novel cleverly dodges knowable reality, circumventing the question of authenticity altogether.” ––Hermione Hoby, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ives is either puncturing a myth about Iowa or advancing it; either option makes her book an indulgence . . . Ives’s interests point toward the philosophical, even the mystical. \u003ci\u003eLoudermilk\u003c\/i\u003e is not just funny; it becomes a layered exploration of the creative process . . . Ives approaches the students themselves with canny tenderness, and their work (which the novel excerpts, delightfully) with grave respect. Her own language is prickly and odd, with a distracted quality, as if she were trying to narrate while another voice is murmuring in her ear.” ––Katy Waldman, \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A clever new satire of writing programs . . . Ives scores some fine touches.” ––Caleb Crain, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Hilarious . . . A riotous success. Equal parts campus novel, buddy comedy and meditation on art-making under late capitalism, the novel is a hugely funny portrait of an egomaniac and his nebbish best friend.” ––Rebekah Frumkin, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A narrative in defense of narrative . . . In a literary critical flourish, [Ives] combines elements of libertine novels, realist novels, social novels, inherited wealth lit, postmodern novels, period pieces, poetry, satire, and revenge plots . . . A funny and cutting novel whose critiques of inherited wealth and its effects on culture in the aughts will keep being true until a full redistribution of wealth, beginning with reparations, occurs.” ––Charlie Markbreiter, \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A cutting, sparkling new novel from Lucy Ives . . . As Ives tells the story of Loudermilk and Harry, and the assorted people they encounter on campus, it becomes clear that she is telling the story of art, of self-invention, of libertines, of culture, of America. Needless to say, things get dark. And yet, it never gets so dark that you can't see what's right in front of you, in all of its tragic hilarity: the truth of what America is at its very worst and its very best—which, as it turns out, are pretty much the same thing.” ––Kristin Iversen, \u003ci\u003eNYLON\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Ives' satirical masterpiece follows poet Troy Augustus Loudermilk, a shallow Adonis recently admitted to the nation’s premiere creative-writing graduate program, located in the heart of America’s starchy middle . . . Laugh-out-loud funny and rife with keen cultural observations, Ives’ tale is a gloriously satisfying critique of education and creativity.” ––\u003ci\u003eBooklist\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The nuanced subversion of tropes and full-throttle self-indulgence of Ives’s writing lend a manic glee to this slyly funny and deeply intelligent novel.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Half gonzo grad school satire featuring these two princes among men, half theoretical inquiry into the nature of writing and reality . . . \u003ci\u003eWonder Boys\u003c\/i\u003e meets \u003ci\u003eCyrano de Bergerac\u003c\/i\u003e meets Jacques Lacan meets \u003ci\u003eAnimal House\u003c\/i\u003e. Something for everyone.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eLucy Ives\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the novel \u003ci\u003eLoudermilk\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eImpossible Views of the World\u003c\/i\u003e, which was selected as a \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e Editors’ Choice, and the collection of stories, \u003ci\u003eCosmogony\u003c\/i\u003e. Her writing has appeared in \u003ci\u003eArt in America\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eArtforum\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Baffler\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFrieze\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eLapham’s Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eVogue\u003c\/i\u003e, among other publications. For five years she was an editor with the online magazine \u003ci\u003eTriple Canopy\u003c\/i\u003e. A graduate of Harvard and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from New York University.","brand":"Soft Skull","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44866617606373,"sku":"NP9781593763909","price":17.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781593763909.jpg?v=1767731843","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/loudermilk-isbn-9781593763909","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}