A Short Film About Disappointment

Praise

“Mattson’s wordplay and low-key sarcasm are reminiscent of Vladimir Nabokov. . . . Mattson also shares Nabokov’s gift for precise wit.” —Star Tribune

“Mattson’s intelligence, in the form of knife-sharp observations and acrobatic language, takes the novel’s center stage.”—Booklist
 
“[A] sharp, funny debut. . . . With weapons-grade wit, Mattson satirizes movies, reviewers, and life in the data age. . . . Mattson’s exhilarating novel is rife with ingenious humor and inventiveness.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“When dystopia subsumes the world, a hero must rise—at least, that’s the kind of banal premise Noah Body expects of the films he reviews, or rather eviscerates, though he’s so little read that his ‘criticism’ amounts to a solipsistic blog about his life and bad decisions. The future he inhabits is less operatically wicked than just stifling, and he has really no power, but he keeps dreaming of making real art and keeps screwing it up. In real life, Katniss Everdeen would be a pious adolescent bore—better to follow Noah and his messy humanity. One feels a little guilty for finding his suffering so funny.” —Zachary Mason, author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey

“A bracing gimlet of vintage ’60’s gonzo with a dash of Charley Brooker bitters, add a twist of Pauline Kael and get ready for this raucous, ambitious and thoroughly hilarious thousand proof debut.” —Bradford Tatum, author of Only the Dead Know Burbank

“Joshua Mattson is a very talented and very funny writer.” —Ben Loory, author of Tales of Falling and Flying