This collection of satirical essays by the wildly clever Neal Pollack was among the first books published by McSweeney's. The author fabricates for himself a super-inflated ego, and goes on to apply that persona's preposterously offensive and short-sighted opinions to issues ranging from race relations to wild teenagers, but more than anything else, to his own (albeit fictional) stunning accomplishments.
The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature, page 39:
"Perhaps you think that it would be easy for me...to find true love. But it is not. I have searched everywhere... for the woman who can fully understand my unique branded mix of wistful intelligence and mild, but endearing neurotic tics. This woman should also like cats, because I have seven, and I cherish them so much."
"The anthology's 24 short 'excerpts' from seven decades of the fictional Pollack's journalism serve to parody the genre of literary journalism...Think Norman Mailer. John Gregory Dunne. Christopher Hitchens. Gay Talese. Truman Capote. Think Norman Mailer again... Deftly ridiculing these masters of the form, Pollack forever soils the genre of literary journalism."
-New York Times Book Review
"One of the greatest satires of authorial vanity to come along since the actual career of Norman Mailer."
-Rolling Stone
