Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for The Happily Ever After by Avi Steinberg - Available

The Happily Ever After

A Memoir of an Unlikely Romance Novelist

by Avi Steinberg
Dustin Rubin
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available
A memoir about writing a novel about searching for love.
Is romance dead? Is that why there are so many vampires in today's romance novels? When Avi Steinberg's love life took a grim turn, he did what he always does: He consulted his old books, the usual cast of Great (Very Serious, Usually Male) Authors. And he immediately realized that these books were part of the problem. Instead, he began to read romances, the books he—like so many of us—have been conditioned to dismiss as "trashy." What he discovered was a genre that was tremendously diverse and daring, along with a vast network of innovative writers who were keeping the novel as alive as ever. His own relationship problems, he realized, came down to a failure of his imagination. And so he set out on a quest to write and publish a romance novel and to find real-life love.
A hybrid of memoir, travelogue, and critical essay, The Happily Ever After chronicles an adventure in a brave new world of literature. Steinberg offers a report from the trenches of romance, moving between major industry conferences and writing groups at the local bar as he works and reworks his romance novel idea. He reveals the inside scoop from a major romance publishing house, crisscrosses the country meeting mysterious ghostwriters and Fabio's great unsung rival, and offers a running take on the fascinating history of romance writing, the genre that invented, and continues to reinvent, the modern novel. Along the way he meets many readers, each of whom sheds light on why we are so fascinated by—and phobic of—romance fiction and what the vitality and fractiousness of our biggest genre says about us.
With quirky wit and disarming honesty, Steinberg captures an often misunderstood literary culture and learns, from its devoted practitioners, how to take the Happily Ever After seriously in his own life.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    August 11, 2020

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593212493
      • File size: 200445 KB
      • Duration: 06:57:35

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      May 4, 2020
      Journalist and humorist Steinberg (The Lost Book of Mormon) documents his plunge into the world of romance writing in this wittily observed account. After a painful divorce, Steinberg looked to romance novels with the hope of discovering “rules” to apply to his own relationships. Despite the “romance-phobia” inculcated in him as a “brain-washed lit major,” Steinberg plunges in, attending romance conventions and joining a writing group to develop his romance chops and write a novel of his own. Steinberg’s romp through “the vast empire of Romancelandia” yields sharp insights into the genre’s influences—he finds a gothic subtext to much romance, from Northanger Abbey to Fifty Shades of Grey—and sometimes surprising observations about its gender dynamic. He finds, for instance, that romance novels currently “tend toward a more openly progressive and even radical feminism.” He also develops an admiration for the genre’s devoted and demanding readership, “people deciding, on their own, what their stories mean to them,” as he finishes his own romance novel (under the nom de plume Dana Becker.) Appropriately, a real-life romance also figures into the narrative. Aspiring writers will appreciate the tips from an outsider who broke in, and romance novels and memoir fans will be pleased that this winning book concludes with Steinberg achieving his own happily-ever-after.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading
Check out what's being checked out right now