Slab Rat: A Novel

Zachary Arlen Post is an up-and-coming editor at It magazine, one of the glossiest jewels in the glittery publishing crown of Versailles Publishing. The son of a well-regarded architect and an eccentric Palm Beach socialite, Zack was educated at an exclusive boarding school and has studied at Colgate, Berkeley, and Liverpool University. He is an excellent golfer and has a talent for translating Plautus from the original Latin. Or maybe not. He is really Allen Zachary Post, the son of a garment-center bookkeeper from Queens and a pool-supply salesman from Long Island. But for Zack, his background is too prosaic for a slightly lazy but very ambitious magazine editor who wants to move up at It. Even though Zack has concocted a background that is more in keeping with the privileged world he wants to be a part of than the truth, his ascent up the masthead has stalled: Try though he might - and maybe he's too lazy to try that hard - he just cannot seem to get promoted. In Slab Rat, Ted Heller uses the magazine industry as a laboratory in which to dissect human nature. He has written a biting, outrageous story of how the rats that battle for dominance amid New york's skyscrapers - or "slabs" - survive and triumph, and the price they must pay to win.

Literature & Fiction

Heller, Ted

Humor & Satire

Scribner

Zachary Arlen Post is an up-and-coming editor at It magazine, one of the glossiest jewels in the crown of Versailles Publishing. The son of socialite parents, Zack was educated at the right schools, is an excellent golfer.... Or maybe not. He is really Allen Zachary Post from Long Island, a guy with a background too downmarket for someone who wants to move up the ladder at It. Despite his pose, Zack's ascent up the masthead has stalled, and his love life is complicated by two women: a cool English beauty with a hyphenated name and an eager, sweet-natured intern Zack could bring home to Mom. With the arrival of Mark Larkin, a determined, Harvard-educated editor who knows all the right moves, Zack's prospects for promotion grow dimmer. Mark seems to be the source of all of Zack's woes. Zack wishes Mark were dead. Ted Heller has written a biting, outrageous story of how the rats that battle for dominance amid New York's skyscrapers -- or "slabs" -- survive and triumph, and the price they must pay to win.

The author of Slab Rat takes readers deep into the earliest days of television in a funny, fascinating novel about a comedy duo following the rough-and-tumble road from the Catskills to Hollywood. 35,000 first printing. First serial, GQ.

Funnymen: A Novel

Sigmund "Ziggy" Blissman isn't the best-looking, sanest boy in the world. Far from it. But this misfit child of a failed husband-and-wife vaudeville team has one thing going for him: He can crack people up just by batting his eyelashes. Vittorio "Vic" Fontana, the son of a fisherman, can barely carry a tune or even stay awake while attempting to, but he, too, has one thing going for him: Women love to look at him. On their own, these two men are failures. But one summer night in the Catskills, Ziggy and Vic step onstage and together become the funniest men -- and hottest act -- in America. Written as a fictional oral history and filled with more than seventy memorable characters, Funnymen is the wildly inventive story of "Fountain and Bliss," the comedy duo that delighted America in the 1940s and 1950s. The episodes recounted here by managers, wives, children, mistresses, friends, fans, and foes -- and the truths Heller reveals about human ambition, egotism, and friendship -- make Funnymen not only a masterpiece of storytelling, but also a thoroughly hilarious read.

All four members of the Furious Overfalls banded together in the sleepy suburbs of Long Island in the seventies. With their raunchy, blistering, bubbling stew of rock, blues, and country, they sold millions of records and played to packed arenas. But then, almost as quickly as it started, it all stopped. The records stopped selling, and the cigarette lighters went out. It’s now forty years later and—somehow, despite themselves—the band is still together. Just as they’re about to finally call it quits, one member of the band falls seriously ill, and they decide to take to the road one last time. With their aching bones, thinning hair, frazzled nerves and fraying tempers, can the four of them pull the tour off? Or will they again implode from within, something they’ve already done countless times? From the acclaimed author of Pocket Kings comes an epic, heartfelt novel about friendship, family, hard work, love, life and death, and rock and roll.

West of Babylon

Literary

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

In this dead-on satire of online obsessions, a novelist with writer's block finds a new-and very lucrative-stream of income in a virtual world that appears to give him everything he lacks in the real world.When Frank Dixon, a frustrated writer who has seen his career crash and burn, decides to dabble in online poker, he discovers he has a knack for winning. In this newfound realm, populated by alluring characters-each of them elusive, mysterious, and glamorous-he becomes a smash success: popular, rich, and loved. Going by the name Chip Zero, he sees his fortunes and romantic liaisons thrive in cyberspace while he remains blind to the fact that his real life is sinking. His online success, however, does not come without complications, as he comes to realize that his “virtual” friends and lovers are, in fact, very real, and one rival player is not at all happy that Mr. Zero has taken all his money.Heller's cautionary tale is continually surprising and startlingly real, a tour de force of satirical storytelling in the vein of Jonathan Tropper and Sam Lipsyte.

Pocket Kings

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Algonquin Books

Frank Dixon’s first novel, Plague Boy, is sinking into oblivion on Amazon, and neither his—nor anyone else’s—literary agent will return his calls. Then Frank discovers online poker, and is soon addicted to the rush he feels as the successful, popular “Chip Zero.” But as he wins thousands of dollars, it soon becomes clear that his internet success is not the solution to his problems. And when the virtual world comes crashing in on Frank’s real life, it can only mean trouble.

HighBridge Company

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heller, Ted. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Heller, Ted

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Heller, Ted. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Slab Rat: A Novel

Slab Rat: A Novel

Funnymen: A Novel

Funnymen: A Novel

West of Babylon

Pocket Kings

Pocket Kings