Author Spotlight: Arthur Nersesian
Ken Schmidt
Issue date: 10/19/09 Section: Entertainment
Mark Twain may be considered the grandfather of "realism" writing for his legendary text "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," a novel that brilliantly illustrated a young boy's innocence in the face of a time period of blind racism. In the middle of the 20th century John Steinbeck used an excruciating amount of detail to describe the hardships of the "Great Depression." These are just two writers that wrote historically significant pieces of realistic literature detailing and critiquing society of their era.
In our time of economic hardship and a new breed of the working class, it is Arthur Nersesian detailing a new world of casual laborers and general apathy. Nersesian pens about a generation raised with poor moral upbringing and who constantly striving for self-realization.
The Armenian author was born and raised in New York, the location where all his novels take place. Nersesian burst onto the scene thanks to Mtv Books picking up his first novel, "The F*** Up."
Following in the footsteps of authors like Twain and even Homer, this novel is a modern day Odyssey of an unnamed narrator whose decisions and apathy lead to his downfall. The unnamed working class everyman begins as a movie theater usher, a job that almost any person can relate to, a job where the employer feels constant alienation, where there is no room for climbing a ladder to success. It is a job where each day is a meaningless grind leading to nothing but a miniscule paycheck.
The narrator eventually loses his job over a pay raise he did not even want. His boss could not afford the extra fractions of a penny to employ him so instead of returning him to his base salary he is let go. He moves in with his best friend Helmsley following being kicked out by his current girlfriend but following in the title of the novel, he messes up that too when he enters into a physical confrontation with Helmsley's girlfriend. If the narrator of Nersesian's novel is a modern day Odysseus then Helmsley's girlfriend Angela is the Cyclopes, sirens, and hydra all rolled into one.
In our time of economic hardship and a new breed of the working class, it is Arthur Nersesian detailing a new world of casual laborers and general apathy. Nersesian pens about a generation raised with poor moral upbringing and who constantly striving for self-realization.
The Armenian author was born and raised in New York, the location where all his novels take place. Nersesian burst onto the scene thanks to Mtv Books picking up his first novel, "The F*** Up."
Following in the footsteps of authors like Twain and even Homer, this novel is a modern day Odyssey of an unnamed narrator whose decisions and apathy lead to his downfall. The unnamed working class everyman begins as a movie theater usher, a job that almost any person can relate to, a job where the employer feels constant alienation, where there is no room for climbing a ladder to success. It is a job where each day is a meaningless grind leading to nothing but a miniscule paycheck.
The narrator eventually loses his job over a pay raise he did not even want. His boss could not afford the extra fractions of a penny to employ him so instead of returning him to his base salary he is let go. He moves in with his best friend Helmsley following being kicked out by his current girlfriend but following in the title of the novel, he messes up that too when he enters into a physical confrontation with Helmsley's girlfriend. If the narrator of Nersesian's novel is a modern day Odysseus then Helmsley's girlfriend Angela is the Cyclopes, sirens, and hydra all rolled into one.
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