Sellevision : A Novel

The hilarious first novel by the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors, Dry, A Wolf at the Table, and You Better Not Cry, Sellevision is Augusten Burrough's darkly funny and vastly entertaining skewering of a very troubled home-shopping channel.

Welcome to the world of Sellevision, America's premier retail broadcasting network. When Max Andrews, the much loved and handsome (that is, lonely and gay) host of a "Toys for Tots" segment, accidentally exposes himself in front of millions of kids, Sellevision faces its first big scandal. As Max struggles to find a new job in television, the popular and perky host Peggy Jean Smythe is receiving sinister emails from a stalker. Popping pills and drinking heavily, she fails to notice that her husband is spending a lot of time with the young babysitter who lives next door. Then there's Leigh, whose affair with married Sellevision boss Howard Toast is going nowhere until she announces their relationship on air. A blistering satire of our overcharged, scandal-obsessed world, Sellevision is "an absolute howl . . . wicked fun" (New York Daily News).

“One of the most compelling and screamingly funny voices of the new century.” —USA Today

“Acidic entertainment.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Sellevision is good company for the beach or the plane. . . . The material sparkles.” —Booklist

“Savvy, very entertaining. Is there a funnier combination than fast-moving soap opera and tawdry comedy? Underneath all the lunacy lies a grim truth: the thin line separating grotesque satire and everyday reality has been erased and will never exist again.” —Bret Easton Ellis, author of American Psycho

“Sellevision is brilliant, subversive, and marvelously evil. In this stunningly fresh debut, Augusten Burroughs has redefined the edge. This is TV Guide for the morally bereft and spiritually bankrupt. Thank God. I feel queasy I didn't write it.” —Suzanne Finnamore, author of Otherwise Engaged

“A painfully hilarious look at the dark side of consumer capitalism and the perils of third-tier celebrity. Days after reading it, I'm still buoyed by the invigorating malice I encountered on virtually every page. Augusten Burroughs has slam-dunked the zeitgeist.” —Robert Rodi, author of Kept Boy