Photo by Anne Fleitas
Novels
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Death By Sunshine (2011)by Allison Burnett, Writers Tribe Books
In Death By Sunshine, fat, bald, drunk, erudite, witty B.K. Troop is lured to Los Angeles for a film deal. That's all I will say about the plot, except that the book is, I hope, gripping, hilarious, painfully honest about Hollywood, and, ultimately, quite poignant. I should mention that DBS is the first publication of a new and exciting publishing company called Writer's Tribe Books. Check out their website. Eventually they will publish all three BK Troop novels..... Thanks so much!
- Allison Burnett
Excerpts:
Video: Allison Burnett reads from Death By Sunshine at Lit Crawl 2.
Reviews:
"...Death by Sunshine is a showcase for the irrepressible Troop, full of naughty humor, absurd misadventures, and playful allusions to everyone from Laurence Sterne to Henry James. But the story has real depth as well, in the end serving as a moving, tragicomic meditation on how being open to the possibility of love can redeem even the worst humiliations and failures." - Robin Russin, Los Angeles Review of Books - Read Full Review - Nell Scovell, Vanity Fair - Charles Busch, author of The Tale of the Allergist's Wife and Die, Mommie, Die! - Claire LaZebnik, author of Epic Fail and Families and Other Non-Returnable Gifts - Seduced by a Literary Original by Robin Russin,
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Undiscovered Gyrl (2009)by Allison Burnett, Vintage Books
Beautiful, wild, funny, and lost, Katie Kampenfelt is taking a year off before college to find her passion. Ambitious in her own way, Katie intends to do more than just smoke with her boyfriend, Rory, and work at the bookstore. She plans to seduce Dan, a thirty-two-year-old film professor. Katie chronicles her adventures in an anonymous blog, telling strangers her innermost desires, shames, and thrills. But when Dan stops taking her calls, when her alcoholic father lands in the hospital, and when she finds herself drawn into a dangerous new relationship, Katie’s fearless narrative begins to crack, and dark pieces of her past emerge. Sexually frank, often heartbreaking, and bursting with devilish humor, Undiscovered Gyrl is an extraordinarily accomplished novel of ide ntity, voyeurism, and deceit.
Video, Gallery, and Excerpts:
Video: Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett Video: Amanda Righetti as the Undiscovered Gyrl Image Gallery: Undiscovered Gyrl
Reviews:
Full Review: The blogosphere's seduction; - Veronique de Turenne, Los Angeles Times
“Insightful and hilarious” - Publishers Weekly
“With an unreliable narrator and a perspective limited to what her protagonist writes in her blog, Burnett creates an often-shocking account of a very troubled young woman forced to face her dire problems with only the help of her loyal readers, strangers who don’t even know her real name.” - Booklist - Laura Hamlett, Playback: Stl - Rachel Resnick, author of Love Junkie and Babylon Rolling
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The House Beautiful (2006)by Allison Burnett, Carroll & Graf.
B.K. Troop, a middle-aged, witty, bipolar, alcoholic homosexual, lives alone in a cramped New York apartment. His life is turned upside down when his best friend dies and leaves him her Manhattan brownstone. To afford the property tax, B.K. turns his new home into a colony for young, struggling artists, to whom he can serve as mentor, if not muse. He christens the place the House Beautiful.
The House Beautiful tells the story of a fateful summer when a young man named Adrian Malloy arrives at B.K.'s door, lugging a suitcase and dragging a garbage bag crammed with what B.K. presumes to be odes and sonnets. Overjoyed to have found a new poet, B.K. sweeps Adrian into his home and under his wing.
At once hilarious, romantic, wise, and lunatic, The House Beautiful tells the story not only of B.K.'s emerging friendship with Adrian, but of all the artists' adventures that summer, as they struggle to make art and love.
Excerpts:
Read: Chapter One of The House Beautiful Podcast: Allison Burnett reads from The House Beautiful Expert: Campaign For The American Reader
Reviews:
“The Greenwich Village demimonde never seemed so demented... The plot here is dandy, mainly along the lines of speed-freak French farce. But the true joy is Troop’s champagne-giddy language and his besotted love for his houseful of bohemians. Armistead Maupin on laughing gas.”
“[Burnett] skillfully handles multiple story lines, and he has a strong gift for wit -- Troop's opening prologue, addressed to critics of his previous novel, is a thesaurus-fueled riot that could give a Bulwer-Lytton judge heartburn. ...The novel is sweet and at times even wise, a celebration of la vie bohème.”
"The House Beautiful is perfectly timed to dispel the gloom of some endless gray afternoon this winter.”...
Advocate Magazine’s “Hot Pick!”
“Adrian moves to New York on a personal quest. He rents a room from the mentally ill, alcoholic, and gay B.K. Troop, who pays his taxes by renting rooms to struggling artists. Full of great characters, charming devices, and happy endings for all, this novel is one of the best of the fall season.”
"I give it 5 stars out of 5." - Lamda Rising
"In the end, The House Beautiful is something of a Romantic paean to the powers of love and art... it’s enormously satisfying—and Troop is the kind of creation careers are made on. " - Jeff Matthews, Frontiers Magazine
"The story is finely told, with the same fanfare and pageantry that made B.K. Troop shine on the first go-round...."
"In this age when the genuine comic novel seems to be an extinct species, Allison Burnett gives us reason to rejoice. The House Beautiful is a wonderfully funny return trip to the world of B.K. Troop, one of the most appealing characters ever put on a page." - Charles Busch
"The House Beautiful is a wonderfully inappropriate title for a tale of such inspired insanity and unsettling truth. Allison Burnett's witty asides gather force and, joining with his insights, reduce the reader to fits of laughter. Burnett is an electrifying and ambitious wordsmith and a new voice among American writers - - a maddening master you need to read." - Andy Behrman, author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania
"I would love to smoke cigarettes with the wise, witty, and outrageous B.K. Troop, while we swap stories about love, art, and the high cost of living.” - Carol Wolper, author of The Cigarette Girl
"B.K. Troop is that rarest find: an unexpected and entirely engaging new character. It is B.K.'s voice — his allusions, fulminations, deprecations, and ultimately his hapless, hopeless romanticism — that makes this fine first novel such an enjoyable romp." - Seduced by a Literary Original by Robin Russin,
"Hilariously repugnant.... B.K. is exquisitely realized.... "
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Christopher: A Tale of Seduction (2003)by Allison Burnett, Broadway Books
Finalist in Fiction, 2004 Pen Center USA Award.
Set in New York City in 1984, Christopher is the story of a young idealist groping for happiness after a painful divorce. The tale is told by his tenement neighbor B.K. Troop -- an erudite, witty, bipolar, alcoholic, middle-aged predatory homosexual who is obsessed with him. Employing the "first-person virtually omniscient" voice, B.K. narrates the story of the young man's painful year, during which he joins the Gary Hart campaign, signs up for a New Age workshop, falls in love with an underage fatherless girl, and wrestles with a novel -- all the while struggling to free himself from his insane psychiatrist mother.
But B.K. has troubles of his own, because, as the months pass, his thwarted lust for Christopher turns into thwarted love. In the end, his young neighbor embarks on the journey B.K. has been avoiding -- the journey inward.
Excerpts:
Read: Chapter One of Christopher: A Tale of Seduction Excerpt: Christopher - "January" at Lodestar Quarterly
Reviews:
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