Cardboard Universe, The
A Guide to the World of Phoebus K. Dank
Format:Paperback
Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Published:1st May '09
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
![Cardboard Universe, The cover](https://cdn.theportobellobookshop.com/img/9780061686368.jpg)
From his humble beginnings as a scribbler of generic science fictions to the night of his horrifying death, Phoebus Kinsman Dank was probably the only real genius of our time, and certainly the most prolific...So writes William 'Bill' Boswell, the nation's leading 'Dankian' scholar and coauthor of "The Cardboard Universe", the seminal biographical guide to the science fiction writer's life and work. After years of tracking the obese, obsessive, and logorrheic pulp novelist, Boswell joins his coauthor, critic, and disaffected fellow acolyte Owen Hirt, to create the ultimate guide to Dank's life and work: a biographical encyclopedia, in which the two memorialize - and fight over - Dank's treasured yet hackneyed body of work. As the reader is pulled along by the unbelievable antics of Dank, the raucous Boswell vs. Hirt backstory gradually comes into focus, and eventually subsumes the story altogether.
"A delight ... a Day-Glo Pale Fire, and maybe the best pure comic novel of the year." -- The Believer, citing The Cardboard Universe as a finalist for The Believer Book Awards "Ingenious...In the vein of John Kennedy Toole, Swift, and Twain, it's a tall tale that touches on all manner of topics, from bizarre clothing to punk rock to insomnia...packed with literary allusion and commentary, along with splashes of mystery...a brilliant, deliriously wordy stab at reimagining and recasting fiction." -- Boston Globe "[A] pulp Pale Fire...hilarious...It's deranged metafiction at its most entertaining. -- Details "A Dickian feat of science-meta-fiction ... plenty of devastating laughs ... tragically funny and funnily tragic." -- The Wire (Portsmouth, NH) "Must reading for [Philip K.] Dick fans and anyone who enjoys a little irreverent fun at the expense of a literary world." -- Booklist "Miller's brilliant, hilarious The Cardboard Universe must be read immediately. Sentence by sentence, Miller proves himself a top-notch comedian, a master of invention, and a writer with a big heart." -- Deb Olin Unferth "The funniest novel I've read in years. Smart, clever, and utterly original...an instant classic that belongs on the same shelf as Catch-22, Portnoy's Complaint, and A Confederacy of Dunces...[with] mindblowing plot twists worthy of Philip K. Dick himself, merciless mockery of everything ridiculous about the literary life." -- Mark Jude Poirier, author of Goats and Modern Ranch Living, screenwriter of Smart People "Chris Miller's powers of invention seem infinite...one of the most original books I've read in a long time." -- Lynne Sharon Schwartz
ISBN: 9780061686368
Dimensions: 203mm x 135mm x 23mm
Weight: 463g
560 pages