Bad Eminence

By: James Greer

Narrated by: Kate Reading

Meet Vanessa Salomon, a privileged and misanthropic French-American translator hailing from a wealthy Parisian family. Her twin sister is a famous movie star, which Vanessa resents deeply and daily. The only man Vanessa ever loved recently killed himself by jumping off the roof of her building. It’s a full life.

Vanessa has just started working on an English translation of a titillating, experimental thriller by a dead author when she’s offered a more prominent gig: translating the latest book by an Extremely Famous French Writer who is not in any way based on Michel Houellebecq. As soon as she agrees to meet this writer, however, her other, more obscure project begins to fight back—leading Vanessa down into a literary hell of traps and con games and sadism and doppelgangers and mystic visions and strange assignations and, finally, the secret of life itself.

Peppered with “sponsored content” providing cocktail recipes utilizing a brand of liquor imported by the film director Steven Soderbergh, and with a cameo from the actress Juno Temple, Bad Eminence is at once an old-school literary satire in the mode of Vladimir Nabokov as well as a jolly thumb in the eyes of contemporary screen-life and digital celebrity.

©2022 James Greer (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

BAD BOOK

Do NOT waste your credits, or money, on this overly precious and precocious attempt at tongue in cheek literature. There is no story, there is no plot. I thought after listening for twenty minutes that, yes- maybe there is humour here, therefore I shall continue. The author, writing as a woman, lets us know how brilliant she is by constantly quoting author after author, in I think three - maybe four languages, Saving grace here is the narrator. Her delivery and various accents were perfect. You may also need a dictionary or thesaurus to hand. This author has gone out of his way to prove he took English in school! However, the story, if you can call it that, is ridiculous. Not knowing this author I researched him, finding that he has written a couple of screen plays, the title of one being Unsane - a film I had actually seen. If I had taken the trouble to do this before downloading this book, there would be no review here. He/she makes constant reference to a particular alcoholic spirit - Singani 63- with several recipes for cocktails. Researching this, having never heard of it before, I found that this brand is owned by Steven Soderbergh. Soderbergh Directed Unsane! I love the phrase 'sucking up'. I think it can be applied here. You may ask why I finished the book? Apparently, according to audible if you do not finish a book you cannot write a review plus, sadly, my curiosity got the better of me. I think the book definitely needs a 'buyer beware' label, so this is mine.