Satirical Novels

A bestseller in Hungary and Germany, this is the story of a woman who awakens one day with a halo that reveals the absurdity of her neighbors and the fickleness of life in a capitalist culture.

This much-acclaimed, wickedly funny bestseller by the author of The White House Mess pits Nick Taylor, chief spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies, against an increasingly self-righteous, anti-smoking society. "The superior goofball plot, raffish cast and zany sex scenes . . . make this the funniest of Buckley's books".--Time.

From rapturous beginnings to melancholy middles to bittersweet endings, Ana Castillo looks at love in its wildly varying modes, and its equally varying configurations. The acclaimed author of "So Far from God" presents "twenty-three tales of love, lust, and the Latina tradition . . . endowed with earthy eroticism and zesty humor" ("Publishers Weekly", starred review).

Valerie Simpson is a young female tennis star with a troubled past who's now on the verge of a comeback and wants Myron as her agent. Myron, who's also got the hottest young male tennis star, Duane Richwood, primed to take his first grand slam tournament, couldn't be happier. That is, until Valerie is murdered in broad daylight at the U.S. Open and Myron's number one client becomes the number one suspect.
Clearing Duane's name should be easy enough. Duane was playing in a match at the time of Valerie's death. But why is his phone number in Valerie's black book when he claims only to have known her in passing? Why was she calling him from a phone booth on the street? The police stop caring once they pin the murder on a man known for having stalked Valerie and seen talking to her moments before the murder. But Myron isn't satisfied. It

Solal is a man of remarkable gifts and disappointed ideals. A Mediterranean Jew who is Under-Secretary of the League of Nations, he has become disillusioned with a world dominated by personal and national interest. His last hope for redemption is through love, and so he embarks on the seduction of his boss's wife, the beautiful Adrien.

From the bestselling author of The Manchurian Candidate and Prizzi's Honor comes a hilarious new novel about a nice hot-dog salesman who, while looking for his long-lost mother, becomes involved with a scheming billionaire who is trying to get her idiotic husband elected president. Martin's.

Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece Point Counter Point. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of modern man" in the manner of a composer - themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another in a tone that is at once critical and sympathetic. First published in 1928, Huxley's satiric view of intellectual life in the '20s is populated with characters based on such celebrities of the time as D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Sir Oswald Mosley, Nancy Cunard, and John Middleton Murray, as well as Huxley himself. A major work of the 20th century and a monument of literary modernism,

This unpredictable novel of Vietnam offers a not-so-longing look at the absurdity of a war in which the damned and the innocent share the same hootch, the same Commander-in-Chief, and sometimes even the same body-bag.

From the highly acclaimed Ma Jian comes a satirical and powerfully written novel about the absurdities and cruelties of life in post-Tianamen China, allowing a humorous yet profound glimpse of those struggling to survive under a system that dictates their every move.

The birth of Jesus has been well chronicled, as have his glorious teachings, acts, and divine sacrifice after his thirtieth birthday. But no one knows about the early life of the Son of God, the missing years--except Biff, the Messiah's best bud, who has been resurrected to tell the story in this divinely hilarious, yet heartfelt work "reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams" ("Philadelphia Inquirer").

Verily, the story Biff has to tell is a miraculous one, filled with remarkable journeys, magic, healings, kung fu, corpse reanimations, demons, and hot babes. Even the considerable wiles and devotion of the Savior's pal may not be enough to divert Joshua from his tragic destiny. But there's no one who loves Josh more--except maybe "Maggie," Mary of Magdala--and Biff isn't about to let his extraordinary pal suffer and ascend without a

Jack leads a rather routine life as a "deconstructionist", destroying old works of art, until his beloved son contracts a rare disease. Jack must now somehow learn to lie if, as he comes to believe, lying is the only way to give young Toby enough hope to effect a cure. Morrow is the award-winning author of Only Begotten Daughter.

In Boogie-Woogie, Danny Moynihan casts a satirical eye over the outrageous 1990s New York art scene. With a nod to Mondrian's abstract masterpiece, Broadway Boogie-Woogie, Moynihan sets out to recreate the energy of that period of excess. In doing so, he paints a deliciously lurid and subversive picture of the lives and loves of artists, dealers, and wannabes in a cutthroat world. Boogie-Woogie is a novel of tremendous originality and verve.

American readers will find much to recognize in this wicked satire of modern politics and morality wars. Laying low since he and his beloved Maggie Thatcher were removed from office, Leslie Titmuss has been waiting for an opportunity to return from his political grave and exact his revenge on the Tories who betrayed him. His chance comes with the arrival of New Labour hopeful Terry Flitton, a principled, centrist politician whose thirst for power is matched only by his political naivete. Who better to school him in the arts of political maneuvering than a seasoned veteran with an ax to grind? Before long Flitton and Lord Titmuss are celebrating success -- but at a price that leaves the young politician searching for the values he lost along the way.

Wizard of the Crow dramatizes with corrosive humor and keenness of observation a battle for control of the souls of the Aburirian people. Fashioning the stories of the powerful and the ordinary into a dazzling mosaic, this magnificent novel reveals humanity in all its endlessly surprising complexity.

From the twisted mind of the satirist who brought readers "The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature" comes a scathing, satirical look at the history of rock stars and the journalists who made them gods.

When a sixty-seven-year-old Canadian rascal named Bernard Panofsky decides to write "the true story of my wasted life, " the result is BARNEY'S VERSION, Mordecai Richler's wickedly funny blend of satire, social commentary, and brilliant introspection on the state of contemporary life.

Hoping to rebut the charges about him made in a rival's autobiography, Barney feels compelled to pen his account of events. From his bohemian misadventures during the 1950s in Paris to the fortune he amassed through his trashy TV company Totally Unnecessary Productions and the three women he married, he quickly proves that his memory may be slipping, but his bile isn't. He skewers feminists, politicians, the bourgeoisie, fads, social movements, and most of all himself. And when it comes to being charged with the murder of his own best friend -- caught in b

Well-loved author Sandlin eschews all political correctness in this hilariousdark comedy about the rather unseemly death of a President and the wacky castof characters caught up in the ensuing whirlwind.

"For decades, Gilbert Sorrentino has remained a unique figure in our literature. He reminds us that fiction lives because artists make it. . . . To the novel-everyone's novel-Sorrentino brings honor, tradition and relentless passion."-Don DeLillo

"Possessing both the grace of James Joyce and the snap and crackle of Tom Wolfe, [Sorrentino] is a must-read for those who fancy fiction served on wry."-"Booklist"

"Far from being overly highbrow, Sorrentino manages to be thrillingly disorienting and, at the same time, quite accessible."-"BookSense.com"

"Sorrentino has shown himself a perfect mimic of the information age, an era when all is revealed and no one can quite remember who appeared on the cover of last week's "People"."-"The Washington Post"

A boyhood friend of the late Hubert Selby, Jr., teacher of Jeffrey Eugenides and

Adrian Mole needs proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction so he can get a refund of the deposit he paid for a trip to Cyprus. Naturally, he writes to Tony Blair for some evidence. "Irresistible, irreverent and impossible to put down."

First published in 1873, The Gilded Age is both a biting satire and a revealing portrait of post-Civil War America-an age of corruption when crooked land speculators, ruthless bankers, and dishonest politicians voraciously took advantage of the nation's peacetime optimism. With his characteristic wit and perception, Mark Twain and his collaborator, Charles Dudley Warner, attack the greed, lust, and naivete of their own time in a work which endures as a valuable social document and one of America's most important satirical novels.