Is first language not English his?
Here’s a website for what I would guess is Burton Hersh’s own publishing company, Tree Farm Books.
Examination of this site leads me to the conclusion that Burton Hersh is actually good at two kinds of writing:
- Political/historical nonfiction
- Flagrantly, hilariously, unbelievably vain self-promotion
Also, The Ski People was his first novel and I think he’s ashamed of it.
You have GOT to make the big screen adaptation! Picture Angeline Jolie in her outfit from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow but with a heay like-Moose-and-Sqvirrel accent:
“Got any idea what a ferb is?”
Sexy.
ETA:
It does look like a bad online translation, jah?
Right with ya on those.
Read Michael Connelly’s Blood Work.
Then watch the movie Clint Eastwood made based on it.
Then say that again with a straight face.
Please note: This is the only context in which I will ever advise someone to see this movie.
Wow, the guy has a lot of “credentials” and “affiliations”. I wouldn’t be proud of a novel with such amateurish content either.
He sounds like one of those “writers” that makes his living schmoozing on the NYC literary cocktail party circuit, but who nobody ever reads. Now that the publishing industry is cutting to the bone, I wish him luck. Up until now, a lot of the books put out might as well be vanity published, for all the quality they contain or sales they make, and I don’t see that being a good business model for a writer, going forward.
So, aside from the newspapers (who are also on the skids), like two or three of those are still in business? Ok fine.
RealityChuck’s Atlanta Nights is really bad but I don’t think it qualifies here because it was intentionally bad. And the Lionel Fanthorpe novels are bad but at least you can tell they were originally written in English. I’ve got to hand the title to The Ski People. It takes a special kind of talent to write your first language as if it wasn’t, and especially to blow a tense scene by casually dropping in “Got any idea what a ferb is?”
The worst bestselling novels I’ve read (there’s waaaaaay too many if you let in everything published) would include
Sphere by Michael Crighton
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
absolutely anything ever written by Danielle Steele
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Quoting the website:
You said it brother. They must have been pretty easy going (fffffffffft…cough cough cough) editors to pass along abject crap like “The Ski People”. As far as a better literary America, well now we can all appreciate what an editor at a publishing house is SUPPOSED to do…
Dude, you reap what you, um, read. If you expect something good from Crighton or (urk) Steele, well, I just don’t know what to say. I would bet they are still leagues better than “The Ski People”. “The Da Vinci Code”?!?!!! What was you thinking?
And I find it interesting that our Author provides no email contact on his website, so readers can provide feedback. I smells a cloistered, out of touch, east coast, literary whore more than ever.
I came in to nominate this mess. I’m glad to see you are still fighting the good fight against what I consider to be the Small Wonder of novels. We must not forget lest history will be doomed to repeat itself.
And in fact, from poking around his website, the dude even today appears to be self published. This means that to this day, no legitimate publisher has deemed his work to have any merit. He is his own Vantage Press.
But he is a Phi Beta Kappa!
Never heard of it. By and large, Clint is one of the more reliable quantities. Hard to name a bad film he was involved with, and you may have found the exception that proves the rule.
/pissed I am too broke right now to take my girl to Gran Torino
//really, really pissed
Hmm? According to his website, he’s had five books published by real publishers, including The Ski People.
Wait, isn’t something sexual happening in the “ferb” scene? Why was there blood on his fingers? Why are they farting? I’m confused by the whole thing.
However, I think he was trying to write one of the characters as English as a Second Language, which explains some of the nonsense in the dialogue. Unfortunately, it seems to spill over into the prose as well.
Also, this may be better suited to GQ, but what the hell is a ferb, anyway? I googled it and came away with page after page of about some Disney show.
Yes, I see that now. But the most recent was from a small specialty publisher, and that was ten years ago, and the one before was in 1992. The titles suggest that the books were of limited runs, appealing to a certain very small niche of political/espionage junkies. The man has no talent for prose, character or story structure, and it is a good thing he hasn’t dabbled in fiction again, after “The Ski People”.
Look, I didn’t want to turn this into an attack on the man. I just wanted to lampoon the atrociousness of a crappy book. I am sure he is a very nice fellow, and I bet I would enjoy reading his nonfiction, if I had the time. All I did was pick up this very strange and bad book one night when I was staying at a Four Points Sheraton, desperate for some reading material. Going through my storage I ran across it again and thought I would share some of the delicious awfulness with my fellow dopers.
Mr. Hersh, if you are out there googling yourself and you run across this thread, please take it light. We are just having some fun with a book that I am sure you, more than anyone actually, knows sucks immensely.
In fact, I should STFU. I have never written a novel, good or bad, much less gotten it published by the esteemed McGraw-Hill, so you are one up on me!
You and me both! I almost don’t want to know. If I ever screw up the resolve to actually read the damn thing through, I’ll post back.
Yup! “Pillars of the Earth” gets my vote, too.
Actually, I think the dialect was “Negro”, I have encountered passages using that word. Racist, even for 1968, if you ask me.
And I have found some sex scenes. Will quote some of those when I get a chance. Some doozies there!