Elliot Allagash [Paperback]

'I found Simon Rich's first novel, about an evil teenage billionaire, to be suspenseful and hilarious.' --Judd Apatow (Producer, Superbad, Knocked Up)

'One of the funniest books about high schoolers since The Catcher in the Rye.' --A. J. Jacobs (Author of The Year of Living Biblically)

'Fellow high school losers, use your video game money to buy this book!' --Gary Shteyngart (Author of Absurdistan, The Russian Debutante's Handbook)

'Rich is always funny, and he nails the bogus solemnity of high-school social politics.' --Kirkus Reviews

'An unfailingly funny and compulsively readable mix of sweet and sour that will leave readers hoping for another helping.' --Booklist

'A hilarious, high-spirited and hormone-fuelled romp through teenage angst and offbeat antics.' --Monocle

`Simon Rich's absurdist approach to the underdog archetype makes for a hilarious and heartwarming romp.' -- USA Today

`Clueless for boys ...studded with rococo set pieces of ruthless masculine one-upmanship... a joy to read' -- Daily Beast

`Delightful' -- Robert Chilver, Waterstone's Books Quarterly

'Funny, smart and generally bloody brilliant - read it.' --Heat magazine book club verdict

`A canny mixture of wish-fulfilment, fantasy and morality tale... The most enjoyable classroom comedy since Tom Perrotta's Election.' --Adrian Turpin, FT

`Scabrous, subtle and savvy' -- Literary Review

Manipulative like Cruel Intentions, malicious like Heathers, competitive like Election, inept like Napoleon Dynamite, Elliot Allagash proves that everyone has a price

Seymour isn't cool, but he isn't a geek either. He's a lonely, obedient 8th grade loser at Glendale, a second tier prep school in Manhattan. His chubbiness has recently earned him the nick name "Chunk Style" and he has resigned himself to a life of isolation. All of this is about to change. After successfully getting himself expelled from every reputable school in the country, Elliot Allagash, the arrogant heir of America's largest fortune, finds himself marooned at Glendale. Try as he may, Elliot cannot get expelled this time; his father has simply donated too much money. Bitter and bored, Elliot decides to amuse himself by taking up a new hobby: transforming Seymour into the most popular student in school. An unlikely friendship develops between these two loners as Elliot introduces Seymour to new concepts, like power, sabotage and vengeance. With Elliot as his diabolical guide, Seymour gradually learns about all of the incredible things that money can buy, and the one or two things that it can't. Hilarious, ingenious and tightly plotted, Elliot Allagash, like a teen movie in novel form, reminds you what your teens were like, and why growing up is so hard to do.

Simon Rich writes for the popular TV sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live, where his sketches have starred celebrities from Justin Timberlake to Anne Hathaway. He is also a screenwriter as well as the author of two humour collections, Free Range Chickens and Ant Farm (the latter was nominated for the prestigious 2008 Thurber Prize). His work has often appeared in the New Yorker and his short story 'Strong and Mighty Men' won the Harvard short story prize. He graduated from Harvard University, where he was president of The Harvard Lampoon. Rich is 26 years old and Elliot Allagash is his first novel.