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The Manhattan Beach Project
A Novel
by Peter Lefcourt


1.0

based on 7 reviews
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Lefcourt's dark, Chayefsky-esque satire finds a struggling Hollywood producer (Charlie Berns from his earlier novel "The Deal") trying to revive his career with a reality television series about a Central Asian warlord.

Simon & Schuster, 352 pages
02/09/2005
$24.00

ISBN: 0743249208

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Kirkus Reviews

Outrageously funny, deftly narrated, but spun out for too many pages, tripping up on its own tangled plot. [15 Dec 2005, p.1158]

Los Angeles Times Susan Salter Reynolds

It is a howler. [20 Feb 2005, p.R7]

Publishers Weekly

The heady, winning blend of sly satire and fast-paced storytelling makes for serious fun as Lefcourt deftly skewers one character after another. [31 Jan 2005, p.51]

Salon Stephanie Zacharek

Lefcourt is a master at keeping increasingly insane plots aloft, and "The Manhattan Beach Project" is no exception, even if some of the story details are enough to make your head spin.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

''The Manhattan Beach Project'' is one of his best and funniest, with a keen grasp of how television operates.

The New York Times Book Review Henry Alford

I dug the larky sense of fun in these early scenes, but what Lefcourt really excels at is comic escalation.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

Mr. Lefcourt has his finger on Hollywood's fluttery pulse, and, come to think of it, on Uzbekistan's as well.

The average user rating for this book is 1.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Cat gave it a1:
This is just an awful book. Really. I saw this book recommended by staff at Salon.com, and I have lost all respect for Salon.com (especially after their sub-intelligent review of Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore)...but I digress. This is a book for you if your idea of literature is a 30-minute sit-com. The book is ridiculously racist and unbelievably badly written, and the plot...well, there is no plot. Critics will give it fairly good marks because they THINK that a book about one of the "-Stans" (Central Asia) must be high-literature and thus deserving of their praise--don't fall into their trap. This book is no parody or satire of Hollywood--to be a satire a book has to be at least smart, and this book is not.

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The Manhattan Beach Project A Novel by Peter Lefcourt

The Manhattan Beach Project
A Novel
by Peter Lefcourt