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Last night, I completed The Psycho-Ex Game. This book is written as a back and forth between two LA-based characters Lisa (a film and TV writer) and Grant (a musician). Both are older, a bit world weary and scarred by years of trench warfare love.
The two of them meet at a performance by Grant and sort of recognize each other. They decide to email each other back and forth. In fairly short order, the emails turn into a game in which they compare horror stories about things that happened with a psycho-ex, scoring points along the way ("helping her score heroin the night before an interview with the press, 200 points" or "listening to him scream about how the waiter brought the wrong food but it was somehow my fault, 450 points"). All the while, their respective lives go on, with some people moving out of the one's life and into the other's.
The book feels like an actual back and forth, with misunderstandings and miscommunications abounding. One of the reasons it feels this way is that it was actually written by two writers, one male (Andy Prieboy as Grant), one female (Merril Markoe as Lisa). Andy is actually a musician in LA and Merril a writer in LA -- how much of the story is autobiographical, I couldn't even begin to say.
The book itself was engaging more as a concept than as an actual read -- I mean, who doesn't have a psycho ex (or five) in their past? The characters in the book restrain themselves to a single psycho in their past, instead of branching out to other people. Which I didn't quite buy, but I suppose the choice may have been made for economy. Still, it was an enjoyable enough read.
Posted by Casper at July 8, 2004 03:03 PM