[Note: This is a parody. None of the people named herein have had anything whatsoever to do with this parody]

This season on . . .
TOP NOVELIST

By the watchers of PROJECT RUNWAY and TOP CHEF.

Episode 1: The Write Stuff…

New York Times Book Critic Michiko Kakutani, novelist John Updike, and maverick author and publisher Dave Eggers have reviewed the work of hundreds of aspiring novels, choosing twelve to come to New York to compete for the title of TOP NOVELIST. The winner earns a publishing contract with Simon and Schuster, a $50,000 advance, and a really really nice Mont Blanc Pen.

Let’s introduce the Contestants

Suzanne: 29, Single, Staff Writer for Lucky Magazine.
Genre Chick Lit.
Admires: Helen Fielding and Jane Austen
Sample Sentence: “I knew my wretched luck was finally turning around when the heel of my Jimmy Choo snapped off and rolled across the elevator floor—right against the shoe of our gorgeous new VP of Marketing, Fritz Fontaine.”

Sadie: 41, Professor of French
Genre: International Literary Fiction
Admires: Chinua Achebe and Nadine Gordimer
Sample Sentence: “We spat at his imperialist heels as we chased him out of the village.”

N.: 33
Genre: Postmodernism
Admires: Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino
Sample Sentence: “You are now reading this sentence. And now you have moved onto this one.”

Perry: 48: Mystery Book Shop Owner
Genre: Mystery
Admires: P.D. James and Edgar Allen Poe
Sample Sentence: “In life she had, no doubt, been strikingly attractive, but with half of her face missing and the remaining shreds of an eyeball hanging in threads against her cheek, it was hard to tell.”

Daniel: 23, MFA Student, Iowa Writers Workshop
Genre: Literary Fiction
Admires: Jonathan Franzen and John Updike
Sample Sentence: “It wasn’t coincidence that the mercury hit five below the day I truly understood my father’s heart.”

Devorah: 37, Playwright
Genre: Literary Fiction and drama
Admires: Samuel Beckett and Truman Capote
Sample Sentence: “’Tell me the truth,’ she demanded. [beat] ‘You and your damn truth,’ he sneered back.”

Julia: 36 Stay-at-home-Mother
Genre: Literary Women’s Fiction
Admires: Toni Morrison and Anita Shreve
Sample Sentence: “Sometimes, Rachael wondered what it would be like to eat eggs benedict just before noon instead of soggy Cheerios as her children boarded the school bus.”

Nels: 35, Assistant Professor of English
Genre: Academic Fiction
Admires: Umberto Eco and David Lodge
Sample Sentence: “Although none of them were Renaissance scholars, no fewer than five of his colleagues had emblazoned above their office doors, that famous vision of Dante as he entered the Inferno: ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter here.’”

Lucy: 66, retired dentist
Genre: Romance
Admires: Judith Krantz and Linda Howard
Sample Sentence: “The question was: did Cannes in the Springtime call for the see-through black chiffon evening gown or the deliciously prudish blue velvet pantsuit that nonetheless revealed her white breasts right down to her nipples if she wore it without a camisole. Chloe stood in front of her open suitcase, paralyzed with indecision.”

Patricia: 44, Activist
Genre: Memoir
Admires: Frank McCourt and Amy Tan
Sample Sentence: “Try as I might, I couldn’t hold back the tears for those who I saw suffering around me. My life was changed irrevocably that day.”

Bill: 26, Barista
Genre: Testosterone Fiction and the Road Novel
Admires: Chuck Palahniuk and Jack Kerouac
Sample Sentence: “’Naw Man, you don’t know shit about shit. Marriage is just a way to keep your ass at home.”

Phillip: 41, High School English Teacher and debate coach
Genre: Literary Fiction
Admires: The New Yorker and Vladimir Nabokov
Sample Sentence: “Richard looked around the bookstore coffee shop and realized that he had devolved into cliché: The black coffee, the black rimmed glasses, the copy of Pale Fire, the secret predilection for women who spoke French and didn’t shave, the stoop of one who wishes to avoid the blows that life was dealing him daily, the shame of his nightly dream of turning into a kafkaesque cockroach rummaging through the dustbin of eternity.”