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    Everything Hurts: A Novel
    Everything Hurts: A Novel
    Everything Hurts: A Novel
    Ebook317 pages5 hours

    Everything Hurts: A Novel

    By Bill Scheft

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Phil Camp has a problem. Not the fact that he wrote a parody of a self-help book (Where Can I Stow My Baggage?) that the world took seriously and that became an international bestseller, or that he wrote the book under a phony name, Marty Fleck, and the phony name became a self-help guru overnight. Phil cannot be Marty Fleck. He can barely be himself.

    No, Phil's problem is that he has been walking with a limp for nine months. Phil is in constant pain, yet there is nothing physically wrong with his body that would cause such agony. This problem leads him to the controversial Dr. Samuel Abrun, a real doctor who wrote a real self-help book (The Power of "Ow!") that made thousands of people pain-free.

    So what happens when the self-help fraud meets the genuine item? Does he get better? Can he hobble out of his own way to help himself? Most important, can the reader make it through fifty pages without thinking, Wait a minute. Is that a twinge I feel in my lower back or just gas?

    Phil embraces Abrun's unorthodox psychogenic theories passionately but manages to save some passion for Abrun's daughter, Janet, herself a doctor who has her own theories about, and remedies for, chronic pain. If all this weren't enough, Phil tries to delve further into his past with his unconventional psychotherapist, the Irish Shrink, even if it means revealing dark secrets he never remembered telling him the first two or three times. To top it all off, Phil confronts his alter ego's nemesis, right-wing radio blowhard Jim McManus, only to find out they share a common enemy -- the same family.

    Like Carl Hiassen and Larry David, author Bill Scheft understands that the best humor is always excruciating. That fits the story of Everything Hurts and its lesson: Pain is the ultimate teacher. By the end, Phil Camp, the self-proclaimed "self-help fraud," turns out to be the real thing. And the real thing turns out to be flawed and confused, but hopeful. In other words, human.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateApr 7, 2009
    ISBN9781439110164
    Everything Hurts: A Novel
    Author

    Bill Scheft

    Bill Scheft, a 15-time Emmy-nominated writer for David Letterman, is the author of two previous novels, The Ringer and Time Won't Let Me, which was a finalist for the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor. He has also written for the The New Yorker, The New York Times, Esquire and Sports Illustrated. He lives in New York City with his wife, comedian Adrianne Tolsch.

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    Reviews for Everything Hurts

    3.5/5

    18 ratings5 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I gave up on page 58. Amazon reviewers liked it a lot, but the plot about a phony self-help guru in chronic pain was not sinking in at all. Scheft was a long-time writer for Letterman, who I never got either. I saw a lot of stand-up comedy years ago and am not sure if I ever saw the author, but did see (and liked) his wife, Adrianne Tolsch.
    • 5/5
      Everything HurtsBy Bill ScheftSimon & Schuster - 2009ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-9934-0ISBN-10: 1-4165-9934-7So this was probably the most fun I've had reading a book in a long while! I couldn't put it down!!!I laughed so hard, I thought I'd cry! And then I did cry when some of the of the comedic antics and self-psycho-analysis got a little too close for comfort!When Phil Camp gets back pain, he's a forty-something, divorced, writer who takes irreverant punches at those he writes about. He also finds the source of his pain may be his deep seated fear, rage, anger, desires, [can we get any more idioms here?] and, oh yes, could it possibly be that he might actually be a grandfather?Bill Scheft writes, as only Bill Scheft can. In that quirky way that leads you to wonder what's really going on in this guy's head?Phil Camp discovers as a pre-teen that his teenaged brother doesn't really share the same Dad he has. And that their Dad, isn't so great of a man after all. Jim, Phil's brother, loses a certain function with a rather delicate part of his anatomy because Dad, and Mom, are too involved in their golf games to take time out for the kids. The brothers become estranged over the years. Well, especially after Phil [aka: Marty Fleck] has sex with Jim's fiancee the night before they take off to get married! So, when their first daughter becomes a mother, Jim's now ex-wife sends a rather cryptic "Happy Birthday Grandpa" to Phil. [Are you with me here?]Phil [alias Marty] has been divorced for a while, but considers his brother the only smoozer with the women. The brothers meet once in eight years, and yeah, it ain't pretty.Fast forward to the pain in Phil's lower back, and gluteus maximus, which causes his left leg to suddenly take off on it's own at times, and the brothers meet up again. This time after a psychotherapist has written a self-help book for those in pain. It's all from rage... he touts.Still with me?The brothers come full circle in the end. And there really is a happy ending to this crazy, mixed up tale!You won't want to put it down! But be careful... you may end up wondering, just what the heck really is the cause of that niggling little pain in your back?Find what's really eating you... pick up a copy today!
    • 4/5
      I read this book as I was starting to really have problems with the back pain that had been bothering me a little bit for months. It was just the book for my frame of mind.This is funny book. No question. It's a very satirical humor, which I enjoy. As with most satire, even its most ridiculous moments have roots in reality. I enjoyed both of the self-help gurus: The doctor who claims all physical pain is caused by issues in the psyche. Resolve those, and the pain will go away. The problem is, who can ever really resolve all resentments, anger, and so on?Better yet was "Marty Fleck", Phil's alter-ego for his parody of a self-help book, Where Can I Stow My Baggage?. No one is more surprised than he is when people take it seriously, and are actually helped by it.There's a romantic storyline, and (as you'd expect) that has twists and turns as well. Janet was a little flat compared to the other characters, but not enough so to be an issue.The (rather ridiculously complex) family relationships and accompanying issues made for interesting reading, and again, there were roots in reality that made the craziness worth reflecting on.This book won't work for everyone. The humor won't work for some, the issues being satirized won't speak to others. If it doesn't sound like it would appeal to you, you're probably right. If it sounds good to you, pick it up to read. I'm glad I did.
    • 4/5
      I know I requested this book for review some time ago but each time I went to read it I could not figure out why on earth I had requested it. Bill Scheft is a writer for David Letterman and writes humor. My husband says I have no sense of humor and I know that in the past I haven't found books that rely on humor at the expense of people to be funny. I still don't know what made me request Everything Hurts: A Novel but I'm really glad I did!Bill Scheft truly brings to life Phil Camp's pain and his struggle to understand where it is coming from. The characters in this book are bizarre and quirky. The writing is very fast paced, even when it seems nothing is actually happening. Flippant remarks fly and many of the conversations make no sense especially to Phil. Phil's family history is pieced together from the odd conversation with the Irish Shrink or from a memory that triggers or is triggered by the pain. Many of the relationships are not at all what they appear to be on the surface.Just like Marty Fleck, Bill Scheft manages to impart insights about the human condition in an irreverent, flippant, off-hand manner that belies the deeper thought underneath.
    • 3/5
      "Everything Hurts" is the story of Phil Camp's climb to fame as satire writer Marty Fleck and then fall from the pedestal as he begins to experience horrible pain in his leg. The bbok follows Camp as he searches for medical and psyhcological cures for his pain and along the way discovers much about himself and relationships. Funny. Well written. Seems to leave a lot hanging at the end but otherwise a good read.

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    Everything Hurts - Bill Scheft

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