Celebrities in Disgrace

Inspired by a society obsessed with celebrities, Elizabeth Searle explores the glittery-dark underworld of 'hopefuls,' those who have been given the slightest hint of success or even imagined success and who are hungry for an audience, of any size. Ranging from a woman's relentless pursuit to be an actress despite her tendency to faint onstage, to a disintegrating family who comes together if only to watch the imaginary lives in a soap opera, these stories capture the thrill and lure of fame and our insatiable need for it. Joanne Wilkinson of Booklist wrote: In this vivid, distinctive short story collection, Searle has some disquieting things to say about the nature of fame and how it both feeds and distorts relationships. Searle, author of the acclaimed novel A Four-Sided Bed (1998), is a skillful writer with a gift for creating atypical characters and themes… And, from Andrew Ervin of the New York Times: The characters in Elizabeth Searle's new collection, Celebrities In Disgrace, don't jump off the pages so much as cling to them for dear life. An avalanche of sexual tension propels these narratives… The title novella…is a miniature masterpiece that holds a dirty mirror up to our often obsessive fascination with the rich and famous. Searle examines the tenuous relationship between one's public and private personas. Many of her characters are most comfortable in front of a camera or some imagined audience, and they gladly accept the personal compromises that accompany fame, or even infamy…