 First edition | |
| Author | Joe McGinniss Jr. |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Grove/Atlantic Inc. |
Publication date | 15 January 2008 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback ) |
| Pages | 276 pp |
| ISBN | 0-8021-7042-0 |
| OCLC | 156834881 |
| 813/.6 22 | |
| LC Class | PS3613.C4832 D45 2008 |
The Delivery Man, is Joe McGinniss Jr.'s first novel, published 15 January 2008.
The story follows the lives of childhood friends who've been negatively affected in different ways from their years growing up in Las Vegas off the strip. When we meet the main characters – Chase, Michele and Bailey – they are now in their twenties and the story focuses on their lifestyle, illegal professions and their caustic influence on the generation right behind.
The story is told from the perspective of Chase, an aspiring painter just out of college, who had left Las Vegas to study art in New York where he met Julia, an MBA student who represents the promise of a life outside of Las Vegas. After returning to Las Vegas to finish school and finding work as a high school art teacher, Chase struggles to break free of his old life and his old friends, who are entrenched in the Las Vegas life of excess.
Plot summary from the Willamette Week in Portland, OR, "A sympathetic look at the life of drug-using, self-destructing hookers and hustlers sounds like an uphill battle, but the simple truth about these characters is that they aren’t hookers or hustlers. They are aspiring painters, film directors and grad students. Although they inevitably prostitute themselves, they seldom talk about it, because they are ashamed or because they don’t understand what’s happening in their lives. All they want is comfort, to live in the Sun King suite on the 22nd floor of the Palace and order room service. But before they know it, prostitution isn’t even paying the bills; one by one, they go into debt with their own bodies."
The novel projects a dark perspective on the culture of Las Vegas, and also on the values inherent in the so-called 'MySpace Generation.' McGinniss based many of the anecdotes in the story on actual interviews he conducted with youth living in Las Vegas.
In a tip of the hat to Bret Easton Ellis' Less than Zero , Joe McGinniss, Jr. in his debut effort The Delivery Man, starts off the novel with these three words: Find Yourself Here. A literary echo of the signifier from Less than Zero: Disappear Here. It sets the stage for parallels between the moral nihilism of 1980s Los Angeles youth culture and the spiritual hollowness to be found among denizens of present-day Las Vegas. The New York Times Sunday Book Review highlights this theme:
According to Variety [1] film rights were sold at auction six months prior to publication and ultimately acquired by Ryan Howe and Thom Mount (The Deer Hunter, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Natural Born Killers) of Whitsett Hill Entertainment.
Be True Productions’ John Domo [2] [3] [4] ("Big Fish" [5] ) and Braxton Pope ("The Trust") are set to produce, with Highland Film Group's Arianne Fraser and Delphine Perrier exec producing alongside Molly Hassell. However, this film has yet to come to fruition.
Amongst the reviews the reaction is largely positive as can be seen in the New York Times Sunday Book Review which named the book a "NY Times Editor's Choice" in January 2008.
The "San Francisco Chronicle" review.
A positive reception is apparent in the "Time Out New York" review.
and the "LA Times" in its review seeks to understand the authors motivation and stylistic approach.
The national monthly magazines "Marie Claire" and "Penthouse" give the novel exceedingly positive reviews, with Penthouse going so far as to call it, "that rare first novel that could well become a classic."
Joe McGinniss Jr. was born in 1970, the son of American writer Joe McGinniss, who is known for achieving early success at the age of 26 with the New York Times bestseller The Selling of the President (1968).
McGinniss Jr. had published short fiction in Las Vegas Weekly . The Delivery Man is his first novel.
American Psycho is a novel by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991. The story is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a wealthy, narcissistic, vain Manhattan investment banker who supposedly lives a double life as a serial killer. Alison Kelly of The Observer notes that while "some countries [deem it] so potentially disturbing that it can only be sold shrink-wrapped", "critics rave about it" and "academics revel in its transgressive and postmodern qualities".
Bret Easton Ellis is an American author, screenwriter, short-story writer, and director. Ellis was first regarded as one of the so-called literary Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style. His novels commonly share recurring characters.
Patrick Bateman is a fictional character created by novelist Bret Easton Ellis. He is the villain protagonist and narrator of Ellis' 1991 novel American Psycho and is portrayed by Christian Bale in the 2000 film adaptation. He is a wealthy and materialistic yuppie and Wall Street investment banker who, supposedly, leads a secret life as a serial killer. Bateman has also briefly appeared in other Ellis novels and their film and theatrical adaptations.
Less than Zero is the debut novel of Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1985. It was his first published effort, released when he was 21 years old and still a student at Bennington College. The novel was titled after the Elvis Costello song of the same name.
Anthony John Spilotro, nicknamed "Tony the Ant", was an American mobster and high ranking member for the Chicago Outfit in Las Vegas during the 1970s and '80s.
John Barrett "Jay" McInerney Jr. is an American novelist, screenwriter, editor, and columnist. His novels include Bright Lights, Big City, Ransom, Story of My Life, Brightness Falls, and The Last of the Savages. He edited The Penguin Book of New American Voices, wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film adaptation of Bright Lights, Big City, and co-wrote the screenplay for the television film Gia, which starred Angelina Jolie. He was the wine columnist for House & Garden magazine, and his essays on wine have been collected in Bacchus & Me (2000) and A Hedonist in the Cellar (2006). His most recent novel is titled Bright, Precious Days, published in 2016. From April 2010 he was a wine columnist for The Wall Street Journal. In 2009, he published a book of short stories which spanned his entire career, titled How It Ended, which was named one of the 10 best books of the year by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.
Glamorama is a 1998 novel by American writer Bret Easton Ellis. Glamorama is set in and satirizes the 1990s specifically celebrity culture and consumerism. Time describes the novel as "a screed against models and celebrity".
The Rules of Attraction is a 2002 black comedy-drama film written and directed by Roger Avary and based on Bret Easton Ellis's 1987 novel of the same name. It was distributed by Lionsgate Films. Its story follows three Camden College students who become entangled in a love triangle with a drug dealer, a virgin, and a bisexual classmate. It stars James Van Der Beek, Shannyn Sossamon, Ian Somerhalder, Jessica Biel, Kate Bosworth, Kip Pardue, and Joel Michaely.
Lunar Park is a mock memoir by American writer Bret Easton Ellis. It was released by Knopf in 2005. It was the first book written by Ellis to use past tense narrative.
The Informers is a collection of short stories, linked by the same continuity, written by American author Bret Easton Ellis. The collection was first published as a whole in 1994. Chapters 6 and 7, "Water from the Sun" and "Discovering Japan", were published separately in the UK by Picador in 2007. The stories display attributes similar to Ellis's novels Less than Zero, The Rules of Attraction, and, to a lesser extent, American Psycho. Like many of Ellis's novels, the stories are set predominantly in California.
The expression "literary Brat Pack" refers to a group of young American authors, including Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz, Jay McInerney and Jill Eisenstadt, who emerged on the East Coast of the United States in the 1980s. It is a twist on the same label that had previously been applied to a group of young American actors who frequently appeared together in teen-oriented coming-of-age films earlier that decade.
Joseph Ralph McGinniss Sr. was an American non-fiction writer and novelist.
American Psycho is a 2000 horror film directed by Mary Harron, who co-wrote the screenplay with Guinevere Turner. Based on the 1991 novel by Bret Easton Ellis, it stars Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman, a New York City investment banker who leads a double life as a serial killer. Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, Josh Lucas, Chloë Sevigny, Samantha Mathis, Cara Seymour, Justin Theroux, and Reese Witherspoon appear in supporting roles. The film blends horror and black comedy to satirize 1980s yuppie culture and consumerism, exemplified by Bateman.
Less than Zero is a 1987 American drama film directed by Marek Kanievska, loosely based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Bret Easton Ellis. The film stars Andrew McCarthy as Clay, a college freshman returning home for Christmas to spend time with his ex-girlfriend Blair and his friend Julian, who is also a drug addict. The film presents a look at the culture of wealthy, decadent youth in Los Angeles.
The Informers is a 2009 American drama film written by Bret Easton Ellis and Nicholas Jarecki and directed by Gregor Jordan. The film is based on Ellis's 1994 collection of short stories of the same name. The film, which is set amidst the decadence of the early 1980s, depicts an assortment of socially alienated, mainly well-off characters who numb their sense of emptiness with casual sex, alcohol, and drugs. Filming took place in Los Angeles, Uruguay, and Buenos Aires in 2007.
Joe McGinniss Jr. is an American writer, and author of The Delivery Man, Carousel Court and a forthcoming memoir.
Imperial Bedrooms is a novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis. Released on June 15, 2010, it is the sequel to Less than Zero, Ellis' 1985 bestselling literary debut, which was shortly followed by a film adaptation in 1987. Imperial Bedrooms revisits Less than Zero's self-destructive and disillusioned youths as they approach middle-age in the present day. Like Ellis' earlier novel, which took its name from Elvis Costello's 1977 song of the same name, Imperial Bedrooms is named after Costello's 1982 album.
Marek Kanievska is a British film director. His films have won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Florence Film Festival. His 2004 film A Different Loyalty was entered into the 26th Moscow International Film Festival.
Breaking and Entering is a 1988 novel by American writer Joy Williams.
The Shards is a 2023 autofiction novel by American author Bret Easton Ellis, was published on January 17, 2023, by Alfred A. Knopf. Ellis's first novel in 13 years, The Shards is a fictionalized memoir of Ellis's final year of high school in 1981 in Los Angeles. The novel was first serialized by Ellis as an audiobook through his podcast on Patreon.