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Wretched Excess: Wickedly Wry Tales

By C. Robert Holloway



C. Robert Holloway, a
Member of the Faulkner Society
and the Krewe of Libris

 

When legendary Hollywood and Broadway press agent, Geoffrey Putnam dies unexpectedly, his lawyers inform C. R. Holloway that Putnam has bequeathed his notes for a tell-all memoir, with the implication that Holloway should get it published.  Surprised and flattered, Holloway soon realizes Putnam’s 21 legal-sized pads, though wildly bizarre and outrageously funny, are a veritable snake-pit of slander and rife for libel suits.  Privately, Putnam referred to his favorite clients as his ‘BCs’ and left his listeners to figure out the meaning of that titillating acronym.  Holloway’s dilemma:  How to fulfill Putnam’s final wishes and not get sued?

For more than a decade, Holloway slaved over the hand-written pages and marginalia, endeavoring to hone down the hyperbole, parse the prurient and decipher the significance of ‘BCs’. The breakthrough came when Holloway leased a second home in New Orleans’ storied Pontalba Apartments and began to assimilate that city’s laissez-faire attitude and exultation in the unorthodox.  “Get out of the way,” it seemed to whisper.  “Leave your small-town judgments back in New Jersey.”  On heeding The Big Easy’s siren-call, the book finally took shape and with it, the meaning of ‘BC’ came into full focus.   

The result is Wretched Excess, nine loosely related short-stories, sure to enrage the aggressively pious, raise the bar on Schadenfreude and delight all who take pleasure in harpooning the hypocritical.

C. Robert’s first novel, The Unauthorized Letters of Oscar Wilde, won the coveted Hemingway Prize and a brace of laudatory reviews along with invitations to speak at University of Bologna, the University of Adelaide, UCLA, USC, and the One Institute in Los Angeles. My Letters from Ludwig, Holloway’s second novel, published in 2004, received glowing reviews and “begrudging acknowledgement from a smattering of Bavarian bureaucrats.” His screenplay, Jean Lafitte, Pirate & Patriot, won the Blazing Quill and Gotham Film Festival Awards in 2008. While writing Dancing to Tchaikovsky, the final novel in his trilogy about gay men of genius, he took time off to write Wretched Excess, which, he promises, offers "equal opportunity offense to a wide spectrum of society."  Between design jobs, Holloway researches, writes and waits on his cat, Charlie, at his circa 1820s garçonnière in the historic French Quarter of New Orleans.

 

Recent Reviews for

Wretched Excess

 

The playwright, Joe Orton, penned a series of darkly comic plays, which stuck pins in the social matrix and included something to offend everyone.  Few, if any, social arenas were left unscathed and most taboos were reviled and/or exposed for the hypocrisies they indeed are. In Wretched Excess, C. Robert Holloway goes Orton one better in a collection his new collection of stories. They produce belly-laughs, recognition, and a kind of 'haveable' revulsion at times. All in all a terrific piece of craftsmanship and black comedy, the likes of which are rarely found in today's literature. Fortunately, one doesn't have to be on the 'inside' of new or old Hollywood to appreciate this roller coaster ride amongst the hills of La La Land.  Well done, CRH. 

— Terrence Shank, Producer/Director/Producer, South Africa, April 17, 2010

Its style is crisp and pithy and very, very funny.  Some of the lines are so clever that I read them twice and thrice over.  The religious satire is … up there with Almodovar.  The [Tennessee] Williams cameo is a delight and the whole thing is a scream - not so much [Evelyn] Waugh as Joe Orton at his wickedest. Thanks for giving me that rare thing - genuine laughs and real literary pleasure.
       —Thomas Wright, Critic, Author Oscar’s Books.


Wretched Excess recalls my privileged youth - sitting at the feet of various Hollywood spellbinders, hanging on their every word, laughing and gasping in delight, never daring to question whether their stories were true or not.  A swell read.
      —Brian Taggert, Screenwriter, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane

C. Robert Holloway's books may be ordered through Faulkner House Books and Society members received discounted prices when books are ordered through Faulkner House Books.

 

 

 

 

  
Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society
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