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Memphis Movie
Eric Warberg went to Hollywood to make it big. For many years, he was successful, until directing a few box office bombs made him virtually unemployable. When an opportunity presents itself for a return to his hometown of Memphis, to direct a small, independent film, it is a return to his roots in more ways than one. Despite the fact that he’s greeted like a star, his homecoming is bittersweet.
The novel begins on the onset of filming of what is temporarily called Memphis Movie . From day one, Eric feels stuck and unable to find his creative spark. He is helped along by a large cast of characters, some from his past and some from the filmmaking industry, including his partner, Sandy, who wrote the script for the movie. Their open relationship will be challenged by Eric’s return to his roots.
Memphis Movie reads like a Robert Altman film, with many story strands making up the rich tapestry. The novel's central will Eric lose or find his soul in Memphis, a town where soul has so many meanings?
The novel begins on the onset of filming of what is temporarily called Memphis Movie . From day one, Eric feels stuck and unable to find his creative spark. He is helped along by a large cast of characters, some from his past and some from the filmmaking industry, including his partner, Sandy, who wrote the script for the movie. Their open relationship will be challenged by Eric’s return to his roots.
Memphis Movie reads like a Robert Altman film, with many story strands making up the rich tapestry. The novel's central will Eric lose or find his soul in Memphis, a town where soul has so many meanings?
320 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
5 people are currently reading
427 people want to read
About the author
Corey Mesler
85 books282 followersCOREY MESLER has published in numerous journals and anthologies, including The Esquire/Narrative4 Project and Good Poems, American Places (Viking Press, 2011). He has published 9 novels, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue (2002), We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon (2006), The Ballad of the Two Tom Mores (2010), Following Richard Brautigan (2010), Gardner Remembers (2011), Frank Comma and the Time-Slip (2012), Diddy-Wah-Diddy: A Beale Street Suite (2013), Memphis Movie (2015), Robert Walker (2016); 5 full length poetry collections, Some Identity Problems (2008), Before the Great Troubling (2011), Our Locust Years (2013), The Catastrophe of my Personality (2014), The Sky Needs More Work (2014); and 4 books of short stories, Listen: 29 Short Conversations (2009), Notes toward the Story and Other Stories (2011), I’ll Give You Something to Cry About (2011), and As a Child (2015). He has also published over a dozen chapbooks of both poetry and prose. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize numerous times, and two of his poems have been chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. His fiction has received praise from John Grisham, Robert Olen Butler, Lee Smith, Frederick Barthelme, Ann Beattie, Peter Coyote, Steve Yarbrough, Greil Marcus, among others. With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store in Memphis TN, one of the country’s oldest (1875) and best independent bookstores. He can be found at www.coreymesler.wordpress.com.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 31, 2023
I started writing this review within minutes of finishing this read.
I didn’t want my thoughts, my reactions to dissipate.
This book begins and finishes in a unique way, but I’ll keep spoilers to a minimum.
I jotted down these lines as I went:
“His voice needed a shave…”
“The sun was sinking into the river. The river was the colour of rotting tangerine…”
“His poem wriggles about like mercury on glass. He watches it crawl around on the page. He tries to spear the one good line with the end of his pen but it evades him…”
I’m quite in awe of all that. They are indicative of the author’s sharp writing style and short, snappy chapters. I felt he was always clicking his fingers or clapping his hands behind me, urging me to keep going. The plot and sub-plots, an unadulterated look into the movie-making world, all grabbed my attention.
Why does novel fall just short of a full 5-star rating? I’m really unsure.
The behaviour of some of the characters is distasteful. Is that it? Not entirely, as this is a story about entitled Hollywood-film types, so I wouldn’t expect them to be all ‘lovey-dovey’ people.
For now, it’s a very enthusiastic 4.5-star rating from me. And given there are no half-star options, well, there you go, it gets the 5 stars.
I will certainly seek out more of Corey Mesler’s work in the future.
I didn’t want my thoughts, my reactions to dissipate.
This book begins and finishes in a unique way, but I’ll keep spoilers to a minimum.
I jotted down these lines as I went:
“His voice needed a shave…”
“The sun was sinking into the river. The river was the colour of rotting tangerine…”
“His poem wriggles about like mercury on glass. He watches it crawl around on the page. He tries to spear the one good line with the end of his pen but it evades him…”
I’m quite in awe of all that. They are indicative of the author’s sharp writing style and short, snappy chapters. I felt he was always clicking his fingers or clapping his hands behind me, urging me to keep going. The plot and sub-plots, an unadulterated look into the movie-making world, all grabbed my attention.
Why does novel fall just short of a full 5-star rating? I’m really unsure.
The behaviour of some of the characters is distasteful. Is that it? Not entirely, as this is a story about entitled Hollywood-film types, so I wouldn’t expect them to be all ‘lovey-dovey’ people.
For now, it’s a very enthusiastic 4.5-star rating from me. And given there are no half-star options, well, there you go, it gets the 5 stars.
I will certainly seek out more of Corey Mesler’s work in the future.
April 27, 2015
“It's a masterwork, Corey. As Seymour said to Buddy, all your stars were out when you wrote it. So many breathtaking moves, I kept wondering: How does he do it? Prose as nimble as Baryshnikov, imagery to die for, and the control of some kind of a sorcerer alchemist lens-grinder. Kick your computer to pieces; you'll never write so well again. If this book gets the recognition it deserves, you'll be a constellation. And oh yeah, I really liked it.”
--Steve Stern, author of 'The Frozen Rabbi' and the Jewish Book Award winning, 'The Wedding Jester'
“Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler’s latest wild ride of a novel, combines Hollywood cynicism and debauchery with Memphis soul and eccentricity. The result is a broadly comic tale with a surprisingly sweet, rather sorrowful afterglow...[It’s] is a playful novel, full of sly and not-so-sly jokes, but it’s not particularly lighthearted. Play can be intense and unsettling, and that’s the case here. This is ultimately a story about failure, aging, and death, about the way people come to terms with them or fail to...For all its waggishness, it’s a novel with a heart. Warberg’s plight, as bizarre and implausible as it might be, is a human one, and it touches the heart. Mesler’s wit and fondness for the absurd complement but never obscure the soul of this novel and its first-rate storytelling.”
--Maria Browning, Chapter 16
--Steve Stern, author of 'The Frozen Rabbi' and the Jewish Book Award winning, 'The Wedding Jester'
“Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler’s latest wild ride of a novel, combines Hollywood cynicism and debauchery with Memphis soul and eccentricity. The result is a broadly comic tale with a surprisingly sweet, rather sorrowful afterglow...[It’s] is a playful novel, full of sly and not-so-sly jokes, but it’s not particularly lighthearted. Play can be intense and unsettling, and that’s the case here. This is ultimately a story about failure, aging, and death, about the way people come to terms with them or fail to...For all its waggishness, it’s a novel with a heart. Warberg’s plight, as bizarre and implausible as it might be, is a human one, and it touches the heart. Mesler’s wit and fondness for the absurd complement but never obscure the soul of this novel and its first-rate storytelling.”
--Maria Browning, Chapter 16
September 13, 2016
This novel sings like a spirited, well played rendition of "Dirty Lowdown Blues" on Beale Street: it is authentic, gentile, Southern and soulful. Mesler treats his characters with a gentle hand in their depiction, which perhaps is Southern or just a spirited and eclectic writer giving his characters time and space to dance to the music of time to enable their unique identities to come into play. This novel is about aspiration and the distinction between what is authentic and what is artifice. This novel deals with the ghosts haunting our spirited lives and advising us well by the insinuation of instinct and the voice of deep, innate reason to be only what we truly are. This novel is about the absurdity of life and its futility: Samuel Beckett is alluded to more than once but in "Memphis Movie" there exists no lingering despair, no bitter edges, no fearsome abyss. Mesler calmly builds characters who live and breathe, whom we come to know and care about, and whose lives intersect with comedy and tragedy in either case to enrich and inhabit a truly immersive reading experience. We become engaged in the storyline because the characters are engaging and beckon us to enter their lives and understand their hopes and dreams and pursuit of their personal ambitions. Mesler takes the aspirations of his characters and they become a springboard to the action of their lives, leading them on, egging them on or, as Scott Fitzgerald wrote in "Gatsby", they become "boats beating against the current." The well dressed set of Memphis in his movie is inherently essential in the telling of this rich, Southern tale: it is not only Southern but it is also American and, at times, even Biblical. Going back to the Pyramid and a poet bearing the storyline named Camel. At times, the Mississippi might just as well be the Nile. Memphis becomes Eden after the Fall and, after all, it's germinal that Memphis is certainly East of both Hollywood and Eden, the latter of which is the first name of the film's producer. Mesler's writing is sure-footed and even throughout the novel and mesmerizing with inventive twists and credible turns in an imaginative storyline which Mesler plays against all the triangles of character like a chess master. The mature writing is calm and simple and glorious with a narrative in which the dialogue limns for its reality and beauty and resonant qualities of readership. One senses a quiet dignity and a subtle sense of beauty in the language by a writer who knows himself and his gifts implicitly. The writing's simplicity and honesty and beauty beguile and entice and evoke an eagerness to see what comes next. So one's interest is piqued, not because of conventions used to build suspense in lesser thrillers, but rather because the writing is exquisite and elegant so we care what happens next as the characters draw us into their lives by virtue of their foibles and their unique gifts. Mesler leads us ably through the haunts of his native city of Memphis: clearly, this is a town that Mesler knows inside-out and worships and adores. Like many great novels there exists a subtle Faustian tale resident in "Memphis Movie" and it is a novel which, as such, should also become a great movie. In the end, life is really just a feature film with images, created on fickle, flickering, insubstantial light playing on thin, luminous film, in which we star, direct and shoot among a cast of thousands with a script of indefinite direction leading to joy and heartbreak and ultimately a bewildering ending. Ah, but what a ride and what an ecstasy comes from this journey as the camera rolls to take in and capture lost time as unique human experience edited by the discretion of memory. Well worth the price of admission, I genuinely loved this great American novel of the South and can't recommend enough that you lose yourself in the 3D cinema of Corey Mesler's brilliant "Memphis Movie."
May 30, 2015
For some inexcusable reason, this is the first book I've read by Corey Mesler. It will not be the last.
June 1, 2015
Corey Mesler's Memphis Movie begins with Eric Warberg, a once-in-demand director currently our of favor in Hollywood, arriving in his home town of Memphis to cobble a new film together. Over the course of this adventure, the film moves absurdly (with direct references to both Samuel Beckett and Albert Camus) around the funky and often offbeat city of Memphis, propelled by a carnival of characters who either arrived with the film or were assimilated into it, usually by whims or other impulses from cast and crew. Or a local ghost or two. And the unavoidable motive force of Eros itself. After the passage of a certain amount of time, the movie "had taken on a life of its own."
Mesler's prose shines, a quirky, distinctive voice that surprises and delights. One never knows where a simile might come from--
". . . lines from Sandy's script dancing in his head like psychedelic mushrooms in an off-Broadway Fantasia."
"The sound was not unlike what a raven makes asking to be let in, scraping its beak upon your bust of Pallas."
"Sue opened the door and looked back once, like Lot's wife."
Art and life interpenetrate promiscuously in this novel, as they do in other places. But the coupling here is uncommonly compelling. This is a book that, like its subject, starts with some basic elements in place, evolves along an often unsettling path, and winds up with Eric, our challenged former Memphian, in a place that made me recall the words of Camus in his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus." After considering what Sisyphus thinks in his endless labor of pushing the rock up the hill only to have it roll down again, Camus ends by saying: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Why would I end my thoughts with this seemingly strange passage? Just read the book.
Mesler's prose shines, a quirky, distinctive voice that surprises and delights. One never knows where a simile might come from--
". . . lines from Sandy's script dancing in his head like psychedelic mushrooms in an off-Broadway Fantasia."
"The sound was not unlike what a raven makes asking to be let in, scraping its beak upon your bust of Pallas."
"Sue opened the door and looked back once, like Lot's wife."
Art and life interpenetrate promiscuously in this novel, as they do in other places. But the coupling here is uncommonly compelling. This is a book that, like its subject, starts with some basic elements in place, evolves along an often unsettling path, and winds up with Eric, our challenged former Memphian, in a place that made me recall the words of Camus in his essay "The Myth of Sisyphus." After considering what Sisyphus thinks in his endless labor of pushing the rock up the hill only to have it roll down again, Camus ends by saying: "The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Why would I end my thoughts with this seemingly strange passage? Just read the book.
August 21, 2023
I know nothing about film, so either this is a spot-on satire of the film industry or a psychedelic metaphor for... something. Either way, it's a lot of fun. (Perhaps more casual sexism than I'm comfortable with in 2023, but still, fun.)
March 23, 2015
I was going to say, "effervescent", kinda like Elmore Leonard, fast, witty ("Woody Allen says that 50 percent of life is just showing up.....the other 50 percent, someone had told Eric once, was having the right office supplies"). This was very early in the book and funny, like Corey is saying "expect this", and he delivered.) Corey is homegrown where I live, but I neither patronize nor victimize him for it. The reader can stop at effervescent, and have a great time. It is more shadowy-noir, though, with death stayed and the shadows moved around like dust bunnies by buoyant witticism. I was "wowed", because within a few hours after the last word I had lost the meaning of the book, but I remembered details, like WTH man?, in a nice way. This story stayed with me all through the night, and I've decided it was a really a lucid dream, and Eric was all of the parts, but one. He was Camel and Dan and Sandy and Mimsy and Lorax and the others. The clues are there, but maybe not so obvious e.g., the garden was a large clue; the mentions (yes plural) of time were clues. There are others,but I don't want to spoil it. Besides, I may be completely wrong. Either way, effervescent or deep, it is duplicitous-ly fun and good. You can have it either or both ways. I will definitely put this with my annual re-reads.
October 13, 2020
The trailer, thanks for Willy Bearden and David Tankersley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9To...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rr9To...
August 19, 2021
MEMPHIS MOVIE is an entertaining romp of a read by a talented writer, featuring a colorful cast of characters, ghosts, and Hollywood/Memphis madness, as it follows the fall/breakdown of a once successful director on his return home. This is a book definitely worth checking out! -- Mitchell Waldman, author of PETTY OFFENSES AND CRIMES OF THE HEART and the forthcoming BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS.
March 27, 2015
In Corey Mesler’s tale of movie magic, he shows us how the sausage is made. And in learning of the process, the ingredients, the myriad hands that touch it all, the end product is made that much more delectable. This is a story that is all at once funny and frustrating, mystical and real, sexy and sad. If you love movies and/or you love Memphis (and it’s clear that Corey is passionate for both), you will want to read this book.
May 9, 2015
Beyond the familiar descriptions of the city, and the both sad and witty look into the grind of movie- making, I recognized the soulful depths of Eric's struggle within the absurdity of life, the search for artistic inspiration and validation while wrestling with the ghosts of one's failure in his home town. Beyond that I must let Corey's words speak eloquently for themselves. I highly recommend!
March 31, 2017
I so loved reading a novel set in Memphis with names and places that I actually know. And this was a great peek into the movie-making machine, and the life of a man trying to figure himself out. Loved the scenes with Eric and his father. I could have done without so much older man/young & under age sex scenes though.
April 28, 2015
This was a great antidote to the other set-in-Memphis narratives my bookclub's read this year. What a great story- and really, what a great subtle ghost story.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 5, 2015
I have been trying to figure out what to write about this really great book that was so well written and it dawned on me... ALL the FIVE Star ratings are exactly what I was thinking and wanting to say, so if you want the best read "David Lentz", "Bette", "Melissa" and the others as they are right on target. I won this great book on GoodReads and like I do with most my wins I will be paying it forward by giving my win either to a friend or library to enjoy.
December 17, 2008
The poem "Music" is especially marvelous.
August 13, 2018
That Memphis Movie drops the reader smack in the middle of this one-of-a-kind story by opening with an interview of indie film maker, Eric Warberg, was a stroke of genius. It set the stage, mood, and tone for this down-on-his-heels filmmaker’s background and tells the reader that the stakes are high in this modern-day story. The book comes out swinging, with dialogue so engagingly sardonic it transcends any necessity for knowledge of a film’s production. And yet, in Memphis Movie the reader receives the minutia of what goes into making a movie, and as this fabulous story unfurls, the savvy reader can’t help but think the chaos is a lot like any other line of work taking over someone’s life. Eric Warberg’s identity is at issue. He’s a washed-up fish-out-of-water dragging his tail in the pond he comes from, trying to pull himself up by his bootstraps but not convinced he can. His is the voice of reason, while one of the more cacophonous cast of characters ever assembled spins out around him, each delightfully drawn player with their own agenda. If there’s any prayer of cohesiveness in this dysfunctional crew, it’s all in Eric’s shaky hands. Sisyphus had an easier time of it, and this is what makes this character intensive story so funny. The book speaks in jargon so spot-on it lends ambience, and the characters sputter and sway in a setting only the infinitely hip know of in Memphis. They are all likable underdogs looking for a center. They are scratching around in the underbelly of an historic southern town, trying to make this thing work. Memphis Movie is a blend of satire, humor, and irony driven by sheer intelligence. Only a gifted writer can peg the nuances of human nature to the point where the reader says of each character, “I know that guy!” All praise author Corey Mesler. I’m so atwitter over Memphis Movie, I’m telling all my friends that this book about the making of an indie film is so good, it should be made into its own movie!
October 26, 2024
I liked this book, but it had some issues holding it back.
Let's start with the good:
1. Dan - I loved this character's personality and character. It showed how dreamy Hollywood actors could be lustful nightmares behind the camera.
2. The Ending - I'm surprised Eric did not get the great ending, his triumphant return to Hollywood; it feels more realistic.
3. Pacing - The novel is paced great, helped by short chapters that allow what would be a slower story to go faster.
4. Memphis - I loved reading a novel set in a city I recognize!
The negatives:
1. Lack of detail - I feel like more little details could have been sprinkled throughout, especially the dialogue which could go on for half a page without a break.
2. Repetitive dialogue - Filler phrases like "uh-huh" are littered throughout, breaking the story's emersion as I am pulled away from the story to focus on this.
3. Lust - This book is stuffed like a Thanksgiving Turkey with smut. I do not mind it with Dan's story as that is part of his story and character, but I did not need so much with everyone else.
If you could look past the countless sex scenes, this novel is a good, quick read.
Let's start with the good:
1. Dan - I loved this character's personality and character. It showed how dreamy Hollywood actors could be lustful nightmares behind the camera.
2. The Ending - I'm surprised Eric did not get the great ending, his triumphant return to Hollywood; it feels more realistic.
3. Pacing - The novel is paced great, helped by short chapters that allow what would be a slower story to go faster.
4. Memphis - I loved reading a novel set in a city I recognize!
The negatives:
1. Lack of detail - I feel like more little details could have been sprinkled throughout, especially the dialogue which could go on for half a page without a break.
2. Repetitive dialogue - Filler phrases like "uh-huh" are littered throughout, breaking the story's emersion as I am pulled away from the story to focus on this.
3. Lust - This book is stuffed like a Thanksgiving Turkey with smut. I do not mind it with Dan's story as that is part of his story and character, but I did not need so much with everyone else.
If you could look past the countless sex scenes, this novel is a good, quick read.
June 6, 2024
A smart, funny, expansive novel that somehow manages to blend bawdiness with innocence. The well drawn, fast moving characters aren’t always angels, but they sure are fun to watch. An unexpectedly delightful book from a very deft writer.
December 28, 2018
Got 22% of the way through it and had to stop. A bunch of 70s phrases combined with sex and names of Memphis businesses and sites.
December 2, 2021
I wonder if this novel might be renamed "Sex and Moviemaking in Memphis". But the characters and plot became more interesting as the narrative progressed.
December 3, 2023
Definitely want to read more by Corey Mesler
January 27, 2019
Plugs for Memphis Movie:
“Quirky, funny, wild. Corey Mesler's witty, sardonic voice leads the reader through a rollicking, ribald romp. Here's sophisticated, elegant Memphis, mashed up with seedy, bedbuggy, front-yard-in-a-tangle Memphis. And the movie folks have everybody all stirred up. Brilliant!”
--Cary Holladay, author of The Quick Change Artist: Stories x
"I have long suspected, because of my hubris, that I would discover the lost continent of Atlantis. Little did I know that it would turn out to be a movie. And what an amazing one, very unique and persuasive and strange and sometimes quite funny, written and directed by this original, clever, funny writer – who is now also a star."
--Ann Beattie, author of Chilly Scenes of Winter and The New Yorker Stories.
“Memphis Movie is a delight. It is a bright narrative filled with non-stop humor. Its laughs are the best kind. They come from a keen observation of human aspirations coming in conflict with human weaknesses. The wild assortment of characters seem to lovingly drift toward the ‘loser’ end of the spectrum. However much fun Corey Mesler has in telling their story, he always seems to find their dignity along the way. Highly recommended.”
--Stephen Tobolowsky, star of Groundhog Day and author of The Dangerous Animals Club x
“Corey Mesler's novel Memphis Movie reads like a train you caught just in time and are glad to be on, no matter where it's going. What I like about it are the accuracy in which he records the clamor and frenzy and desperation and massively collaborative effort of film production, and that the setting is in my home town, including what I like to hope is the same house I lived in on Rembert 40 years ago. With an intimacy gleaned from somewhere, Corey knows producers and screen writers and all the people involved in film production who keep plates spinning and balls in the air while the meter is running. This is a novel with humor, clarity and soul, and I will give each one of you who buys a copy a shiny 10 cents piece.” x
--Chris Ellis, star of October Sky and The Dark Knight Rises
“Few Hollywood movies have any lasting value. The same can be said of novels about Hollywood. All the good ones would line a very short shelf. With Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler adds another permanent treasure to this exclusive canon. Equal parts expose, memoir and fantasy, Memphis Movie is insightful, satirical, funny and ghostly. Place Mesler's novel on that shelf beside They Shoot Horses, Don't They, Play It as It Lays, Get Shorty, What Makes Sammy Run? and The Day of the Locust.”
--William Hjorstberg, author of Fallen Angel (from which the movie Angel Heart was made) and Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
“I have difficulty believing that Corey Mesler was not nurtured on celluloid. This dark, funny, mysterious, sexy novel is so spot-on in its recreations of film-land zeitgeist as to be spooky. And nestled cunningly in this highly-entertaining, sheet-ripping romp is a serious and well-crafted book about talent, confidence, memory, loyalty, and the every-day hauntings that happen only to the living. Dan Yumont is a major character in this novel: a true Hollywood wild-man, a walking id completely committed to his own sensory overload. What saves him from being a Hollywood trope is that he just happens to be an inspired and brilliant actor and acting is the one thing in his life that he takes seriously. On top of the rest he is bold and very funny. Writing is my passion and I don’t roll over easily for the writing of others; however, I was charmed by this book. I’ve started it over a second time, and recommend it heartily.
I’ve read any number of books about the movies. I’ve never before read one that I sent to my publisher who bought it faster than he bought mine. Corey Mesler is an undiscovered treasure. This book screams to be a movie. The role of Dan Yumont, the drug-addled priapic hero is waiting for a super-star with the balls to do it. Brad? Colin? Sean? Johnny? The characters are sharp, smart, and funny. I was sorry when I finished it. So I started it over again.”
--Peter Coyote, star of E.T. and Northfork, and author of Sleeping Where I Fall
“It's a masterwork, Corey. As Seymour said to Buddy, all your stars were out when you wrote it. So many breathtaking moves, I kept wondering: How does he do it? Prose as nimble as Baryshnikov, imagery to die for, and the control of some kind of a sorcerer alchemist lens-grinder. Kick your computer to pieces; you'll never write so well again. If this book gets the recognition it deserves, you'll be a constellation. And oh yeah, I really liked it.”
--Steve Stern, author of The Frozen Rabbi and the Jewish Book Award winning, The Wedding Jester
“Quirky, funny, wild. Corey Mesler's witty, sardonic voice leads the reader through a rollicking, ribald romp. Here's sophisticated, elegant Memphis, mashed up with seedy, bedbuggy, front-yard-in-a-tangle Memphis. And the movie folks have everybody all stirred up. Brilliant!”
--Cary Holladay, author of The Quick Change Artist: Stories x
"I have long suspected, because of my hubris, that I would discover the lost continent of Atlantis. Little did I know that it would turn out to be a movie. And what an amazing one, very unique and persuasive and strange and sometimes quite funny, written and directed by this original, clever, funny writer – who is now also a star."
--Ann Beattie, author of Chilly Scenes of Winter and The New Yorker Stories.
“Memphis Movie is a delight. It is a bright narrative filled with non-stop humor. Its laughs are the best kind. They come from a keen observation of human aspirations coming in conflict with human weaknesses. The wild assortment of characters seem to lovingly drift toward the ‘loser’ end of the spectrum. However much fun Corey Mesler has in telling their story, he always seems to find their dignity along the way. Highly recommended.”
--Stephen Tobolowsky, star of Groundhog Day and author of The Dangerous Animals Club x
“Corey Mesler's novel Memphis Movie reads like a train you caught just in time and are glad to be on, no matter where it's going. What I like about it are the accuracy in which he records the clamor and frenzy and desperation and massively collaborative effort of film production, and that the setting is in my home town, including what I like to hope is the same house I lived in on Rembert 40 years ago. With an intimacy gleaned from somewhere, Corey knows producers and screen writers and all the people involved in film production who keep plates spinning and balls in the air while the meter is running. This is a novel with humor, clarity and soul, and I will give each one of you who buys a copy a shiny 10 cents piece.” x
--Chris Ellis, star of October Sky and The Dark Knight Rises
“Few Hollywood movies have any lasting value. The same can be said of novels about Hollywood. All the good ones would line a very short shelf. With Memphis Movie, Corey Mesler adds another permanent treasure to this exclusive canon. Equal parts expose, memoir and fantasy, Memphis Movie is insightful, satirical, funny and ghostly. Place Mesler's novel on that shelf beside They Shoot Horses, Don't They, Play It as It Lays, Get Shorty, What Makes Sammy Run? and The Day of the Locust.”
--William Hjorstberg, author of Fallen Angel (from which the movie Angel Heart was made) and Jubilee Hitchhiker: The Life and Times of Richard Brautigan
“I have difficulty believing that Corey Mesler was not nurtured on celluloid. This dark, funny, mysterious, sexy novel is so spot-on in its recreations of film-land zeitgeist as to be spooky. And nestled cunningly in this highly-entertaining, sheet-ripping romp is a serious and well-crafted book about talent, confidence, memory, loyalty, and the every-day hauntings that happen only to the living. Dan Yumont is a major character in this novel: a true Hollywood wild-man, a walking id completely committed to his own sensory overload. What saves him from being a Hollywood trope is that he just happens to be an inspired and brilliant actor and acting is the one thing in his life that he takes seriously. On top of the rest he is bold and very funny. Writing is my passion and I don’t roll over easily for the writing of others; however, I was charmed by this book. I’ve started it over a second time, and recommend it heartily.
I’ve read any number of books about the movies. I’ve never before read one that I sent to my publisher who bought it faster than he bought mine. Corey Mesler is an undiscovered treasure. This book screams to be a movie. The role of Dan Yumont, the drug-addled priapic hero is waiting for a super-star with the balls to do it. Brad? Colin? Sean? Johnny? The characters are sharp, smart, and funny. I was sorry when I finished it. So I started it over again.”
--Peter Coyote, star of E.T. and Northfork, and author of Sleeping Where I Fall
“It's a masterwork, Corey. As Seymour said to Buddy, all your stars were out when you wrote it. So many breathtaking moves, I kept wondering: How does he do it? Prose as nimble as Baryshnikov, imagery to die for, and the control of some kind of a sorcerer alchemist lens-grinder. Kick your computer to pieces; you'll never write so well again. If this book gets the recognition it deserves, you'll be a constellation. And oh yeah, I really liked it.”
--Steve Stern, author of The Frozen Rabbi and the Jewish Book Award winning, The Wedding Jester
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