≡ PDF Gratis The SleepOver Artist Fiction Thomas Beller 9780393321715 Books

The SleepOver Artist Fiction Thomas Beller 9780393321715 Books

Download As PDF : The SleepOver Artist Fiction Thomas Beller 9780393321715 Books

The SleepOver Artist Fiction Thomas Beller 9780393321715 Books

I picked up The Sleep-Over Artist after seeing it on an earlier version of the NYT Notable Books list. It is certainly notable in the sense that it is written more like a series of short stories and less like a novel. The book starts off with a profile of a young man named Alex Fader. He has what you may call a very basic life with absentee parents-and the eventual death of his father-- and he spends a lot of time sleeping over at friends' houses--hence the title of the book. We learn about his schooling which also doesn't go well until he picks up filmmaking which he very much enjoys and becomes the focus of his life. Although in his earlier years, one would not think he would be the romantic type, he has an almost insatiable desire for sex and has many girlfriends throughout his life. The one we learn most about is his relationship with a upper crust English woman who has a young boy. It is the least obvious romance one could imagine but the one that perhaps defines Alex's life and really forms the backbone of the book. A very different book to read but I do recommend it.


Tags : The Sleep-Over Artist: Fiction [Thomas Beller] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <strong> In the same way Salinger carved out the niche of male adolescence ....Beller approaches that mutable boy-to-man territory. ―<em>San Francisco Chronicle</em></strong> Writing with the sparkling wit and insight of his highly praised debut,Thomas Beller,The Sleep-Over Artist: Fiction,W. W. Norton & Company,0393321711,Short Stories (single author),FICTION Coming of Age,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction General,Fiction Short Stories (single author),General,Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945),Modern fiction,Popular American Fiction

The SleepOver Artist Fiction Thomas Beller 9780393321715 Books Reviews

The main setting for this novel is the concrete canyons of New York City where the main character, Alex Fader, spends his childhood in a high-rise apartment. Having personally grown up in a small town in the northwest, I have always regarded New Yorkers as being from an alien culture. This novel, perhaps, explains some of that culture.
The novel is written in a narrative form as related by the main character. It is written as a series of related short stories, initially about incidents in his childhood, and then about relationships with a succession of women. He is not exactly a gigolo, but is somewhat a parasite as he camps out with various girlfriends. He drifts through various jobs, including drummer with a rock band (with a girlfriend who makes sheep noises), but is not overly successful at anything.
Just as Alex seems to be developing a serious relationship, it abruptly ends and he is back with his mother. It seemed like there was a chapter or two missing. It is a somewhat interesting novel, but easy to set aside.
This is an enjoyable but amateurish book about a shallow and annoying young man who passes through a succession of unsuccessful romantic relationships, along with some other significant life events. Various stylistic flaws should have been caught by an editor. For instance, especially in the first half of the book, Beller is given to juxtaposing contradictory emotions too often we read of the main character's "mixture of malevolence and love," or "a mixture of sadness and exasperation and sexual excitation." Beller is no doubt trying to sound emotionally profound in these passages, but he doesn't make the effort to explicate these ambivalences realistically. Further, the book also does not end, it just terminates. And yet, on occasion Beller says something truly insightful, as in my favorite scene when the main character, Alex, tries to kiss a woman he'd been wooing through feigned indifference; finding himself rebuffed, he bows out awkwardly, admitting that once you've tried to kiss a woman and failed, you can't return to the indifference routine. But such rare gems are few and far between. In sum, this book is better than watching commercials, but for something better read A Trip to the Stars.
THE SLEEPOVER ARTIST sounded like an interesting premise and I wanted to like the novel because I liked the author's writing style, but it was a snoozer and I just couldn't finish. I made it about 3/4 through and decided I had wasted enough of my precious reading time. It was time to move on to something else.

THE SLEEPOVER ARTIST is told in several different short stories and each one may have an interesting plot here and there, but as a novel, it didn't seem to work. The stories weren't very cohesive for me. Just as I got interested (a little) in one plotline, the next chapter would jump several years later or several years earlier. It made me appreciate the characters less as I tried to figure out how everything fit together to tell me a story about Alex, the main character.

After reading 3/4 of the book, I found that I really didn't know much about Alex. Worse, I didn't care what happened to him or any of the characters in the "novel," so I gave up. Therefore, sadly, I can't recommend this book, but I hope the author matures in his plotlines for future novels.
I found this to be a well written, captivating book. It was so captivating that I read it three times. I normally do not like, or read very much fiction . What drew me to this book was the fact that I like Thomas Beller's non-fiction writing so much. I was therefore very curious to see what his fiction would be like. I started out by reading Seduction Theory, his excellent book of short stories, several of which deal with Alex Fader, the main character of this book. To my surprise, I liked it very much. So I decided to read this book next.
I was not disappointed. I found the writing to be excellent. The character of Alex Fader is well drawn, very complex and very interesting. I found the book to be ultimately very moving. Alex Fader is not always an easy character to like or understand, but his internal conflicts and great vulnerability eventually draw the reader into liking him and being concerned about his fate in life. Mr. Beller has done an excellent job with this book.
I picked up The Sleep-Over Artist after seeing it on an earlier version of the NYT Notable Books list. It is certainly notable in the sense that it is written more like a series of short stories and less like a novel. The book starts off with a profile of a young man named Alex Fader. He has what you may call a very basic life with absentee parents-and the eventual death of his father-- and he spends a lot of time sleeping over at friends' houses--hence the title of the book. We learn about his schooling which also doesn't go well until he picks up filmmaking which he very much enjoys and becomes the focus of his life. Although in his earlier years, one would not think he would be the romantic type, he has an almost insatiable desire for sex and has many girlfriends throughout his life. The one we learn most about is his relationship with a upper crust English woman who has a young boy. It is the least obvious romance one could imagine but the one that perhaps defines Alex's life and really forms the backbone of the book. A very different book to read but I do recommend it.