Elliot Allagash

March 15, 2010
Saturday Night Live
writer Rich's first novel (after two humorous collections) is a hit and miss riff on Pygmalion
in which genial high school loser Seymour gets a life-changing makeover after meeting Elliot, a fabulously wealthy malcontent who has transferred to Seymour's Manhattan private school. Elliot's lessons on the power of money and the fine art of popularity are given in exchange for chubby Seymour's agreement to do whatever Elliot tells him to do, and, sure enough, Seymour transforms from consummate outsider to a Harvard-bound, straight-A class president. But as the book constantly reminds readers, there are things money can't buy, even for the Allagash family, whose astronomical wealth comes, believe it or not, from an ancestor's invention of paper. Elliot “knew the functions of all his father's companies... never seemed to know what I was thinking or feeling,” opines Seymour, who grows increasingly complacent in Elliot's schemes and alienated from his dimensionless, doting parents. While Rich is undoubtedly funny and quick-witted, his novelistic chops are underdeveloped, and the narrative's inevitability and the lack of character development detract from the book's finer, funnier points.

March 15, 2010
Two outsiders from opposite sides of the tracks join forces to survive that most heinous of limbos: high school.

Comedy writer and essayist Rich (Free Range Chickens, 2008, etc.) mines the adolescent postmodern humor of King Dork and Youth in Revolt and emerges with a feel-good comedy that melds the feel-good humor of the 1995 film Angus with the acerbic wit of the recent Charlie Bartlett. The book follows the trial by fire of the narrator, Seymour, an obese but grudgingly docile eighth-grader at a posh Manhattan private school. He's the sort of kid who puts up with the school's arcane policy of putting any student involved in a scrap in detention—which means Seymour is in detention every week just for getting beaten up. His life changes dramatically when another character, an arrogant little bastard who stands to inherit an unimaginable fortune, takes an interest in Seymour's future."Don't thank me," says Elliot."Remember I'm not doing this out of kindness or generosity. I'm doing this purely for sport. It's an intellectual exercise—a way to occupy my days during this hellish period of my life." Before long Seymour is stealing test answers; accepting a devilish bargain to sneak into Harvard; and corrupting the simplistic social systems of school to rise to the top of its hierarchy, no matter what it costs. There are some filler moments, mostly involving parents, but it all comes together. Rich is always funny, and he nails the bogus solemnity of high-school social politics.

A high-school romp that John Hughes should be so lucky to direct.

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April 15, 2010
Rich, who in 2008 became the youngest-ever writer for Saturday Night Live, follows up his humor collection Ant Farm and Other Desperate Situations (2007) with this first novel. Meet nerdy 14-year-old Seymour Herson, whose life changes dramatically when a new student transfers to Glendale, his second-rate prep school on Manhattans East Side. Move over, Machiavelli; Elliot Allagash, heir to Americas largest fortune, is in town and is determined to transform hapless Seymour into Glendales uncrowned king. For what purpose, you ask? Well, lets just say that altruism is not a word in schemingand martini-sippingElliots vocabulary. Like Dolly Levi before him, he enjoys . . . arranging things (and people). This episodic novel is largely Seymours account of his new friends ingenious and wildly complex schemes, which transform chunky Seymour into a star basketball player, president of his class, humanitarian, brilliant student, artist, and much more. A never-exactly-subtle satire on the corrupting power of unlimited wealth, the novel is nevertheless an unfailingly funny and compulsively readable mix of sweet and sour that will leave readers hoping for another helping.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)