cover image The Man Who Wrote the Book

The Man Who Wrote the Book

Erik Tarloff. Crown Publishers, $23 (320pp) ISBN 978-0-609-60468-7

The author of Face Time abandons the Beltway and sets his second novel in the seemingly pokier arena of academia. But in this entertaining, whimsical tale, the scholarly existence of literature professor Ezra Gordon is by no means free of chaos and surprises, as sex, secret identities and pornography encroach on and transform his life. The story begins on a downcast note, with Ezra in danger of losing his job at Beuhler, a tiny Baptist college, because he hasn't published articles in his field. His joyless relationship with the daughter of a college trustee is doomed; his doctor tells him he's going ""downhill"" physically, and he's broke. Depressed, Ezra calls his best friend from grad school, Isaac Schwimmer, who invites him to L.A. Isaac, who's a decadent and wealthy porn publisher, shows Ezra a hedonistic weekend involving rich food, excessive drinking, cigars, saunas and sex with a porn star. Ezra feels recklessly alive, and so when Isaac asks him to write a porn novel and cuts a generous check, Ezra agrees to create a dirty book under the pseudonym E.A. Peau. The book's unexpected success has him scrambling to keep his extracurricular project a secret. Irony increases when he learns that he's now the favorite writer of the unwitting prudes who would deny him tenure; it threatens overload when it's discovered that Peau's zip codes match those of Beuhler College and Ezra is made chairman of the investigative committee. Tarloff's brisk one-liners and graceful choreography of clashing personalities evidence his former occupation as a sitcom scriptwriter and happily contribute to this romp in its surge toward a fairy tale ending. (May)