Golk himself, about whom so many in this novel revolve, is the mastermind behind the hidden camera expose, which he uses to entrap people into behaving naturally in slightly extraordinary circumstances. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Combining high drama with surreal hilarity and presenting a remarkably prescient view of the future of television, Golk ranks with Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust as one of the finest novels ever written about the American entertainment industry. Through a devastating series of exposures—"You’re on Camera"—Golk manipulates the high and mighty, the lowdown and dirty, and the outrageous weird; all are within the compass of Richard Stern in this early novel, a comedy with as many inspired maneuvers as its rambunctious protagonist has for taking the measure of a profligate world.

The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. People were willing to become golks, for it was an entrée into celebrity, an exalted realm above the activities of the mere scrabblers in life. We have therefore developed this carpet set around our own new soundproofing kit which when fitted correctly will give you a great result and would recommend all new carpets are fitted with a Newton Commercial underfelt. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.Its protagonist is equally clueless, although he learns, and he is equally taken under the wing of a strange guy who tries to be mythic and always the smartest guy in the room. Golk manipulates the high and mighty, the lowdown and dirty, and the outrageous weird; all are within the compass of Richard Stern in this early novel, a comedy with as many inspired maneuvers as its rambunctious protagonist has for taking the measure of a profligate world. He is drawn to Elaine Hendricks, a mid-20-ish divorcee who comes from money, and whose peripatetic past included a wealthy and abusive husband. Several months later Hondorp and Hendricks begin to receive random, intermittent postcards from Golk, which both pique curiosity and guilt.

Television has little to do initially with the portrait that Stern paints of his central protagonist, the 38-year-old perpetual student Hondorp, whose life at the novel’s start consists only of roaming the streets of New York, observing, mingling with people, passing time till he can go home to his father’s apartment in Manhattan—where, after dinner, he reads, and his father languishes in front of the tv till he sleeps—and then begin again his aimless routine all over the next day. We check for naughty words and verify the authenticity of all guest reviews before adding them to our site. Attraverso questa figura e il programma che con essa si identifica Richard Stern propone una riflessione sulla vanità, sugli eccessi dell'esposizione mediatica e della fama, sulla trasformazione dell'industria dell'intrattenimento negli anni in cui aveva appena iniziato ad affermarsi con la tv e sul rapporto fra realtà e artificio. The more combative the personality, the better the joke, and to help trap his victims Golk enlists a team of misfits, including Herbert Hondorp, a scholarly layabout turned photogenic decoy, and Jeanine Hendricks, a 23-year-old debutante with a bitter worldview.A peaceful and charming guest house near Meissen with a delightful garden and a large shady courtyard for dining or a refreshing beer.