Mark O'Donnell – författare

In his brilliant new novel, the first since the widely enjoyed Getting Over Homer, Mark O''Donnell takes us on a wild and funny tour through the Christmas season''s ultimate challenge: the day of too many parties.It''s Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve Eve in Manhattan--five days from the holiday Ground Zero--but Tad Leary, the most confused man on earth, doesn''t know whether to celebrate or go crazy. He''s just been fired, he''s about to be evicted from his sublet, he''s getting nowhere on his overdue folklore thesis, "Social Hierarchies of Imaginary Places," and on top of everything else--or rather underneath everything else--at age thirty-four (older than Christ), he''s five-foot-one and still baby-faced, so he''s treated like a child wherever he goes. Nonetheless, he''s been invited to seven (a magic number one of his rivals is writing a thesis about) different Christmas parties that day, and he decides to explore every one of them for possible work, apartments, love, and just plain distraction.Tad''s a walking punch bowl of joy and fear, goodwill and alienation, running a constant mental argument with himself throughout his long marathon. By midnight, he will have visited all parts of his past--from brunch with his rumpled Boston Irish parents and arguably more successful brothers, to dinner with his beautiful Swedish ex-girlfriend, to a fancy, colossal uptown bash where, by now dangerously looped, he bumps into an ex-boyfriend (more confusion!) looking as "glorious and golden as a roast turkey."A farcical, over-the-top feast of twisted one-liners and outrageous imagery, Let Nothing You Dismay depicts Tad''s--and everyone''s--struggle for survival, with a bracing combination of Darwinian theory and hallucinatory fairy-tale wonder. It''s a Chekhov story told with P. G. Wodehouse flippancy, or a tale of Celtic mysticism as S. J. Perelman might have rendered it. Above all, the bright spots in this darkest night of the soul prove that comical epiphany isn''t just for Christmas anymore.From the Hardcover edition.

"Wise and forgiving . . . tough-minded and tender-hearted" (The New York Times), this delicious "coming of middle age" novel takes a lyrical, winsome, and genuinely side-splitting look at the heartbreak, aging, the search for home, and the madness of love between two mismatched men. "A stylish mix of humorous irony and realistic detail."--San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A hilarious and wickedly original collection of pieces and cartoons by one of America’s funniest writers. The title story (as sweeping as any novel but without the annoying length, more glamorous than a miniseries but without commercial interruption) follows a tragic (not to give anything away) love triangle (an idealistic screen goddess and her two unshakable lovers—who happen to become the last two presidents of the United States) through decades of (imaginary) American history.  Here is some of what you’ll find: in “Marred Bliss,” the fractured puns of a love quadrangle (“Maybe you’d rather ram off with her! She’s been trying to reduce you since she got here”)…in “Diary of a Fan,” the diarist’s deepest thoughts (“I saw Sigourney Weaver on the street today. I pity her”)…in “The Whom of Kaboom,” a perilous cruise with Jack the Hipper, sculptor of the famous Venus de Mylar…and in “A Tall Tale,” a meeting with America’s tallest tall-tale hero, Johnny Business, whose wealth requires three strong men just to conceive of.  Gasp for air, and then browse the high school yearbook of the planets, learn about electricity from electricity itself, and discover Emily Dickinson, advertising copywriter. Vertigo Park is the latest from the wild workshop of Mark O’Donnell—a hands-on volume for students of laughter everywhere.

Hairspray is the 2003 Tony Award® winner for Best Musical!Based on filmmaker John Waters' affectionately subversive homage to his Baltimore youth, Hairspray takes place in 1962. Chubby Tracy Turnblad (Marissa Jaret Winokur, 2003 Tony winner for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical) is transformed into a teen celebrity on a local TV dance program. With her irresistible stage mother (Harvey Fierstein, 2003 Tony winner for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical) at her side, she attempts to win the heart of the local heartthrob and integrate “The Corny Collins Show” at the same time.