James Greer: Books I Totally Ripped Off in Writing Bad Eminence
By And Other Stories
By And Other Stories
James Greer is a novelist, screenwriter, and musician. His previous books include the novels Artificial Light and The Failure, and the story collection Everything Flows. As a screenwriter, he’s written or cowritten written several movies, including Max Keeble’s Big Move, Just My Luck, The Spy Next Door, and Unsane. He’s also played in a number of not-very-well known indie-rock bands.
Peppered with ‘sponsored content’ providing cocktail recipes utilizing a brand of liquor imported by the film director Steven Soderbergh, and with a cameo from the actress Juno Temple, Bad Eminence is at once a sexy, old-school literary satire in the mode of Vladimir Nabokov, as well as a jolly thumb in the eyes of contemporary screen-life and digital celebrity.
Out July, 5 2022
Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A.
Eve Babitz
$16.95 $15.76An influence in reverse: because I could never write about Los Angeles as well as Eve Babitz did here and elsewhere, I decided at least for this book not to write about Los Angeles, despite knowing more about that city than any other. But there are elements of Eve's persona in my character V, whether I like it or not. (I do!)
Hangsaman
Shirley Jackson
$16.00 $14.88Could have picked any Shirley Jackson novel, but since I used a bit from this one for my epigraph, it seemed the best choice for this list. But I've stolen more from (and admire more ardently) We Have Always Lived in the Castle, tbh.
The Journal of Albion Moonlight
Kenneth Patchen
$19.95 $18.55A too-little-read masterpiece of fiercely pacificist, jazz-inflected prose poetry. I first read it when I was maybe twelve, and didn't understand a single line. I've returned to it over and over again through the years, and Patchen's surrealist visions and rhythms have been so thoroughly picked over by my subconscious that I can't point to a particular instance of deliberate theft, but it's there, I'm certain.
Speedboat
Renata Adler
$14.95 $13.90A great and funny and incredibly smart book that I have stolen from in ways both covert and overt.
Mumbo Jumbo
Ishmael Reed
$17.00 $15.81The possibilities of parody and non-narrative fiction have rarely been better explored than in this book. Also, its use of photos and illustrations predates/prefigures W. G. Sebald's more "serious" (in scare quotes like robot claws) use in his, uh, "work." And "mine."
The Transit of Venus
Shirley Hazzard
$18.00 $16.74I wish I could write as elegantly and beautifully as Ms. Hazzard in this, her finest book, one of the greatest works of art in the past fifty years. I did my best. I would kill to adapt this book for the screen. Who would I kill? You, for rolling your eyes at me.