A novel about the rise and fall of an unemployed actor who lands the greatest role of his life when he’s hired as a personal assistant to an absurd Hollywood family.
Beneath the novel’s deadpan, stinging depictions of this rarefied Tinseltown milieu, The Simp also explores the painful but, in Sethi’s hands, bleakly comic ways race and colonial history collide with the dream of fame ... Refracted, at times, through a potpourri of cultural sources ... Still, what this exceedingly smart and funny novel finally suggests is that until the world isn’t run by rich, entitled monsters, most of us are going to pass at least a portion of our time on Earth in some degree of simpitude.
An immersive, literary page-turner that offers timely commentary on race and a peek into the lives of the Hollywood elite ... The voice is witty, sharp, and sarcastic with great pacing, providing glimpses into Raj’s past and a slow reveal of everyone’s secrets.
