The Bones

by Seth Greenland

Frank Bones is a self-destructive, take-no-prisoners, bad boy comic at the bottom rung. Lloyd Melnick is a long-lost acquaintance whose work on the smash hit The Fleishman Show has made him the hottest comedy writer in town. When their worlds collide the consequences involve a crashed Hummer, corrupt police officers, enraged ex-husbands, sultry bartenders, and high-speed chases to Mexico and back. A brilliant satire, The Bones is a stunning debut that reveals, in all its hilarity and ache, the dark heart of comedy. Seth Greenland is an award-winning playwright. He has written extensively for film and television. A longtime New Yorker, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two children. "Who is Seth Greenland and how did he get into my house and gain access to the most secret and disturbed places of my brain? He cuts so close to the bone he whittles it into a fine powder that gets into the clothes you wear and the air you breathe. The Bones is a tour de force, and I rarely use French phrases."-Larry David, creator of Curb Your Enthusiasm "Greenland shows himself a worthy successor to such past masters of the Hollywood novel as Nathaniel West and Budd Shulberg."-Los Angeles Times "Savagely funny...one of the most perceptive and flat-out hilarious novels about the city's brutal Darwinism, a book that makes you cringe through your laughter-induced tears."-San Francisco Chronicle "A pitch-perfect sendup of Hollywood's endemic self-importance...Greenland keeps his foot firmly on the gas and the book's pace is fast, furious and fun."-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Genres: Fiction, Humor

402 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 1, 2008

Reviews

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book just wasn’t for me. It seems cleverly written but the characters weren’t intriguing or likable and I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. I ended up skipping most of the book and reading the last two chapters. Even though the setting was my own city of Los Angeles and I could see in my head all the street and towns they spoke of, I just couldn’t connect! I’ll return it to my neighborhood’s Little Lending Library that I found it in and hope it finds another home that might enjoy it more than I did!

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The Bones" refers to Frank Bones, bad boy of comedy; and this satirical story follows him along with Lloyd Melnick, a comedy writer who knows Frank from way back in New York before L.A. While self-aggrandizing stand-up comic Frank is unfaithful to his porny girlfriend, enjoys target practice with his drug dealer at the shooting range, and chases ever elusive fame of epic proportions, poor Lloyd suffers being husband to a dictatorial wife, father to a sociopathic toddler, and fantastically successful comedy writer despite his best attempts at sabotage.

This is a viciously witty look at America's media culture of mediocrity. For me it was kind of like spending hours on end stuck in websites like blindgossip or blinditemsexposed.com.

[David Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this one up in a thrift store. What a find! Very entertaining read, and a very unpredictable story. The story hinges on relationships between men, and between men and women. Every character is a real personality - no cardboard heroes or villains, no stereotypical madonnas or bad girls.

The author not only grew up watching television, but has been deeply involved with the television industry, so this book belies my prejudice against recent writers.

[Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a first novel? I thought it was very impressive. Insightful and candid about the curious lives of television writers. Funny in places where I didn't expect to laugh. I would read something else by Seth Greenland. In fact, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Wayland Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one had been on my to read list for a while, and I finally got to it. I have to say, I didn't care for it. The author's style wasn't for me, and some of his phrasing and repeated words got to grating on me after a while. He really, really likes the words "masticate," for example. No one thinks things over, they masticate on them. A lot. I didn't like the vast majority of the characters, and the plot got really odd at times.

Frank Bones, the titular character, is a comic stuck in the touring circuit who can't get a breakout hit or a deal for something better. Lloyd Melnick is a tv comedy writer. They knew each other back in New York, then later both moved to LA to pursue stardom. It didn't work out for either of them, and things take a lot of weird turns. There's the rise and fall of tv careers, a really annoying wife, and the posturings of the LA social life. Then, after a climactic car crash that really could have been the end of the book, there's a second part. There, we get an attempt at a comeback, an accusation of murder, some corrupt cops, a run for the border, and finally a great character, a bartender with a wicked sense of humor and a switchblade.

It wasn't a bad book, I just ended up not caring for it.

[Jonah Zimmer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was really just not a good book. I somehow felt like there was too much character description and yet they were still all flat. There was what should’ve been a jaw dropping plot twist like 100 pages from the end and I still managed to be bored. And not to mention the way that it is just a horrifying example of sexism and “women written by a man” with no semblance of self awareness that it is so. I finished this book only because I’m stubborn.

[D. Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book!

[Patrick Schultheis · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was good. A little too long and took too long to get going

[John Luiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have now read all of Seth Greenland's novels, and boy, is he a terrific writer. This one has a bit of meandering plot - the first two thirds are a behind the scenes look at the Hollywood lives of a stand-up comic, itching for a comedy pilot, and a comedy show writer, who's been writing the coattails of a more successful writer but then gets his own shot - a multi-millionaire-dollar, multi-year development deal with a cable network. In the final third, it becomes a crime novel, but Greenland successfully strings it all together. What makes it all work is the strength of these two characters, as the novel shifts between their two points of view from chapter to chapter. Frank Bones, the comic, is like a white Richard Pryoer, a brilliant comic who's always living on the edge - doing too much drugs and even pulling out a gun and shooting at the ceiling during one of his shows. Lloyd, the writer, is a schmiel, who takes for granted his million-dollar deal because he really wants to be creating great art and is envious of the secretary who's penning a novel in her spare time. He's also henpecked at home with a wife who's busy climbing the Hollywood social ladder, and whose dream is to live in the toniest neighborhoods and be in with the "in-nest" Hollywood crowd. Frank and Lloyd knew each other in their early days in New York when Frank was just starting out and Lloyd was a reporter for an alternative newspaper. Their lives become intertwined again when they're both developing comedy pilots for a cable network. The Hollywood stuff is terrific - skewering the silliness of pitch sessions and showing how charitable causes simply serve as an outlet for these vain people to try to outdo each other. The final third raises the stakes on everything, but the novel stills remain true to the exploration of the arcs of these characters lives - as Frank pushes everything in his life to the outermost edges and beyond, and wannabe Lloyd trails along, wishing he had the chutzpah Frank does to live his life on his own terms. Along the way the sentences, observations, and humorous and biting satire Greenland offers make the novel, like his two others, one entertaining ride.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Frank Bones, the oddball protagonist of The Bones, carries this clever story about moral misfires and tabloid celebrity in Hollywood. Bones, who addresses himself in the third person, is a comic dud anxious to reach beyond his C-list fame. Greenland weaves a clever, if not over-the-top, story about one man's attempt to regain fame and another's sideways journey to reap its rewards. There are bones to pick with this debut, though one may overlook such trivialities when realizing how difficult it is to avoid comedic repetition. Greenland almost gets away with it; however, much of Bones's plot mimics the shtick of so many other Vineland-esque tales. Is it any wonder that he got the most love from California critics? In short, this is the literary equivalent of cotton candy__it is confectioned and colorful, but not terribly fulfilling.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Gaye · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is remarkable. i laugh at least twice on every page. greenfield is bright, witty and deep. he expresses himself intellectually and knows his subjects as if they were his innards...and, surprise, surprise...they ARE! as the l.a. times wrote: "a laugh out-loud satire and page-turner with a big bang ending...a remarkable debut." of course, i haven't reached the "BIG-BANG" ending as yet so to me it's just a "theory"...sorry, i couldn't resist. i shall be back when i complete this wonderful book with more to rave about, i'm sure.

i'm baaaaaaaaack! this book is a wonderful first novel. it held my interest all the way through with interesting and quirky characters and events taking unusual twists and turns throughout. it does get a bit more serious as it progresses and the laughs aren't as frequent as they were through the first half of this wonderful story. still, mr greenland is smart, clever, witty and intellectually creative. don't miss this one.

[Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently found Seth Greenland's The Angry Buddhist (from a review on Goodreads) and loved it. So I've gone back to also now read this earlier (debut) work.

In parts hysterically funny yet also very insightful on the nouveau riche Hollywood entertainment industry habitues.


Featuring Frank Bones, a "Lenny Bruce" type comedian who longs for ultimate fame and fortune without sacrificing his soul and Lloyd Melnick, who manages to be living the life his wife wants for him as a writer/producer of a mediocre sitcom.

It does go off the rails a bit (as debuts can) but a fun ride 'til that point.

[Jeannette · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tod Goldberg at the LAT Festival of books called this the funniest book he's read in the past 10 years. That intrigued me.

It wasn't the funniest book I've read in the past 10 years, but then I again I don't work in TV in Los Angeles. Its humor did grow on me, so that by the final 100 pages I was laughing out loud at times. Ultimately, the absurdity is so extreme (think Carl Hiaison) that it's hard to take it too seriously. But then again, maybe I just don't realize how bad things are there. I'm not sorry that I read it.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining Hollywood satire that focuses specifically on the comedy world, Greenland manages to hit the usual skewering Hollywood notes - soulless executives, social-climbing wives, fake-breasted bimbos - while actually creating human characters that you really care about. The second half of the novel devolves into a bizzare crime novel, but overall it was a fun read with a surprisingly kind heart.

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An impressive debut novel. I had a stronger affinity for Lloyd (an ambitious novel writer) rather than the gregarious and often pernicious Bones. But the significance that the latter contributes matures in the final chapters, providing gratifying commentary on a disingenuous Hollywood, self-awareness and human nature.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This acerbically funny novel is half Hollywood-skewering farce and half road adventure. The violent intersection of the lives of a fading comedian and a rising comedy writer is detailed with some crackling narration and dialogue. This book is wry and biting and I look forward to reading Greenland's new one.

[Louis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this one a lot more than I did. Greenland creates some decent comic setpieces but to what end? The book has a disagreeable title character operating in an environment I find overrated as a subject for stories, the backrooms of Hollywood. Maybe his next novel will get the job done a little better.

[Julia Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Buy this book at the airport, read two thirds of it, then leave it on the plane. You'll enjoy it thoroughly, and have the pleasure of skipping the incredibly ridiculous denouement. Oh, and try not to notice the skipping around of the tenses.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the great Los Angeles novels, up there with Chandler and Bruce Wagner.

[Anna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sur la quatrième de couverture figure un extrait de la critique du magazine Lire qui qualifie Mister Bones de "roman le plus drôle de l'année".
L'année a dû être sinistre.

[Denali · Rating 2 out of 5]

wacky, funny but uneven book about the world of comedy & tv. like shining city a lot of healthy skewering of LA social culture.

[Jeanee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brash comedian and self-absorbed screenwriter meet their romanticized fates after a series of perilous events, a bit excessive and contrived.