The Spinster Diaries / Gina Fattore

Information

Author:

Gina Fattore

Date:

Prospect Park Books
April 2020

Author:

Additional Info

THE SPINSTER DIARIES

Rights Holder: Linwood Messina
Original Language: English

"Fattore's lightning-fast prose shines... A humorous and heartfelt look at the expectations women have lived with, and triumphed over, across the centuries."
—Kirkus Reviews

“Witty, whip-smart and winning, Gina Fattore’s Spinster Diaries is a sheer delight. In her tale of an anxious TV writer who turns to the lessons gleaned from her favorite writer—eighteenth-century novelist Fanny Burney—to navigate a health scare and ensuing existential crisis, Fattore expertly carries us from droll humor to incisive cultural critique, from lively comedy to utter poignancy.”
— Megan Abbott, bestselling author of Dare Me and You Will Know Me

“Gina Fattore writes like the voice of your best friend in your head…Like Carrie Fisher, Fattore is funny as hell and in love with words and curious things; she’s the quiet voice at the dinner party that you realize is also the smartest and funniest right around the time dessert appears."
— David Duchovny, actor and author of Holy Cow and Miss Subways

« Wouldn’t it be cool if ‘Gina Fattore’ was really the pseudonym I chose for my prose writing, and it was actually me who wrote this funny, emotional, expertly crafted novel, and it was me whose witty and original voice was so fresh and capitvating ? Well, a guy can dream. »
—Greg Daniels, co-creator of such hit TV show as The Office and Parks and Recreation

"Sign me up for the Gina Fattore fan club. I adore her."
—George Hodgman, author of Bettyville

"I wish my diary was this much fun to read. Fattore’s writing shines brightly in this amazing debut."
—Debbie Graber, author of Kevin Kramer Starts on Monday

The narrator of The Spinster Diaries has just learned that she has a tumor, and to add insult to injury, she can’t find her car in the Beverly Center parking lot. But it’s ok, the tumor is benign. Since it’s pressing on her frontal lobe she should probably have it removed but she’s not going to worry about that for now. Instead, she needs to focus on landing a new staff-writing gig (she’s a TV writer), while also working on the screenplay of her romantic comedy. Except, as a self-proclaimed spinster, she has no experience with love to be able to write about it, and has no plans of falling into it anytime soon. So she turns her attention to writing a 6-part mini-series that the BBC will surely want to produce based on an unlikely source for inspiration: the 18th century novelist and diarist (and spinster until her marriage) Frances Burney (1752-1840) who, according to Virginia Woolf, is the "mother of English fiction".

Though now consigned to the dustbin of history, Frances Burney inspired Jane Austen, pretty much invented the chick lit genre to astounding success, and worked in the court of King George III during the time when the King went mad.

The Spinster Diaries is an inventive and funny (unromantic) comedy about how the life a trailblazing female author of the 19th century can reach out across the centuries and touch the life of a single TV writer based in Los Angeles.

Gina Fattore is co-showrunner/executive producer of the USA network series Dare Me. Her other credits as a TV writer and producer include Masters of Sex, Parenthood, Californication, Gilmore Girls, and Dawson’s Creek. Before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in TV writing, she was an assistant editor at the Chicago Reader. Her essays and reviews have appeared there and also in The Millions, Salon, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

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