Bad Eminence

Kirkus Reviews

'A thoroughly bizarre, frequently compelling literary thriller.’

Dennis Cooper

‘James Greer has always been a novelist I would hock my skills set to measure up against, but even matched against his prior coups, Bad Eminence is unspeakably exciting. Its grace and hilarity and brains and foolproof read on Frenchness and I don’t even know what else made my hands shake.’

Juno Temple, prodigiously talented actress with perfect hair

‘I take exception to the characterisation of my hair as “difficult”, as my hair is in fact perfect, which I can prove in a court of law. Everything else James wrote is exactly as it happened, to the best of my memory.’

Joshua Cohen

‘With eye and ear and tongue – and oh brother, what a tongue! – James Greer is the leading Renaissance Man for our current and possibly terminal Dark Ages.’

Michael Lesslie

‘This is a work of lacerating style that shook my faith in the tangible world. It preys upon the real in capricious ways, like so much of the best fiction, toying with the reader's memories until we're not sure what we see, or what we have seen. James Greer is a circus-master of great humour, malevolence and allusion, a fabricator of eerie truths. It's terrifying to enter his world.’

Howard A. Rodman

'Bad Eminence is, at one and the same time, a diatribe against narrative; a fiendishly engaging mystery; a learned disputation on the arts of translation; a masterful addition to the literature of sisters and twins; a roman à clef (I’ll never tell); a catalogue raisonné of the French nouveau roman; and the most literate advert for Bolivian firewater you’ll ever encounter. By turns wildly maddening, laugh-out-loud funny, heartrendingly poignant, Bad Eminence pulls you into its world like no other. You will not regret a moment spent romping in its lexical playfields.'

Matthew Specktor

‘The narrator of James Greer's Bad Eminence, Vanessa Salomon, comes on like a double-deranged cross of Tristram Shandy and Charles Kinbote only twice as funny and half as self-aware. What makes it work is Greer's pinpoint control of Vanessa's ineffably charming voice (and, uh, her incredible cocktail recipes! Pour yourself a Vieux Carré, why don't you?), and his diabolical ability to make her digressions amount to something. (Also, did I mention the cocktail recipes?) If this book has flaws, I didn't notice them. Bad Eminence is a stone blast from start to finish.’ 

Ben Schwartz

‘James Greer is the Daphne de Maurier of psychological French literary translation thrillers that don’t in any legally actionable way involve Michel Houellebecq. Bad Eminence is a funny, witty walk into a world where words, memories, people, life, death, and truth have more than one meaning.’

Praise for James Greer

‘Strong writing and shrewd perceptions prevail, backed by wry humour, compelling stumblebum characters, a true-blue louche atmosphere, and arresting insights into the dream of art, be it literature or rock and roll.’ Donna Seaman, Booklist

‘A Nabokovian thriller, light-hearted and caustic, which is also a subtle reflection on all forms of manipulation, be they criminal, corporate, amorous or . . . novelistic.’ Éric Chevillard, Le Monde

‘Greer’s lyrical erudition is both serious work and seriously fun . . . proof that there remain new places to go, both on paper and in the known universe.’ Publishers Weekly

‘Greer does a superb job of transcending conventional genrefication, bringing something fresh to contemporary literature . . . A very enjoyable read [with a] highly inventive structure, full of eccentricities . . .’ Library Journal

‘One of the nimblest and most multi-layered American fiction writers.’ Dennis Cooper

‘James Greer’s The Failure is such an unqualified success, both in conception and execution, that I have grave doubts he actually wrote it.’ Steven Soderbergh

‘Greer has done it again: a big-city, techno-jargon-filled thrill-ride with slick medium-brow drop references to our (once-shared) mythological hometown. What could be more poignant?’ Robert Pollard, rock musician

‘Artificial Light skates on the purity of confession. It’s a brutal reveal; an Abyss Narrative with hooks. Read it in a rush of abomination and rise above, rise above.’ Stephen Malkmus