Praise for Eastman Was Here
"I can't imagine anything smarter or more exuberant than this novel. You want to smack Eastman on the head every couple of pages, but you never want to part with him."
—Lara Vapnyar, author of Still Here
"Eastman Was Here has it both ways, beautifully, both a hilarious send-up of certain Gen Greatest literary icons and their self-aggrandizing, self-crippling conceptions of manhood, as well as a moving tale of existential crisis. Gilvarry’s comedy is sharp, but just as impressive is the way he gives his characters a captivating richness and an ability to surprise. There is so much artistic and intellectual delight in this book, all of it suffused with real feeling."
—Sam Lipsyte, author of The Fun Parts and The Ask
"With his second book, Gilvarry establishes himself as a writer who defies expectation, convention and categorization. Eastman Was Here is a dark, riotously funny and audacious exploration of the sacred and the profane—and pretty much everything in between. —Téa Obreht, New York Times bestselling author of The Tiger's Wife
"Alex Gilvarry has not so much reimagined Norman Mailer as he has channeled him. Eastman Was Here is a wildly entertaining book, intoxicatingly written and deceptively profound in its insights into the nature of celebrity, country, marriage, war and the pitfalls of being a writer. If Mailer had lived to read this novel, he’d have been jealous."
—Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, author of When Skateboards Will Be Free and Brief Encounters with the Enemy
"A wry throwback of a novel that, though it's set in the past, feels relevant and new. In the tradition of satirists like John Kennedy O'Toole and Kurt Vonnegut, Alex Gilvarry sends up the 'bad old days' of '70s-era hypermasculinity and misogyny, paints a vivid picture of Saigon during the War, and introduces us to an unforgettable anti-hero: the enraging, absurd, hilarious Eastman. Despite its satirical tone, there is real heart in this book, and I found myself incredibly moved by its final act." —Liz Moore, author of Heft and The Unseen World
"What if a down-but-not-dead literary lion went to war? Eastman Was Here seeks out that question and so much more. Part tribute and part throwback, it howls with dark comic energy and brings real vibrancy to two staples of the American imagination, 1970s New York and the Vietnam War. In Alex Gilvarry's masterful hands, the character of Eastman will both delight and horrify readers, something his real-life inspirations would no doubt appreciate. This is a wild joyride of a book and one of 2017's best novels." —Matt Gallagher, author of Youngblood
Praise for From the Memoirs of a
Non-Enemy Combatant
“It's rare for a novel to tread so fearlessly into the political and yet to emerge so deeply funny and humane. Gilvarry is a young talent on the rise. Watch him gallop through the mess we’ve made of our civilization with style and panache.”
—Gary Shteyngart
"The narrative crackles with satire ... You'll also be twisting a lip upward at the Bellowesque brio of Gilvarry's language ... Delicious ... Comedic Bravura ... A left-handed love-letter to America."
—Daniel Asa Rose, The New York Times Book Review
"Lively ... Hilarious .. Gilvarry's whirligig of a book ... draws some striking parallels between the way we mythologize stars and the way we look at terrorists ... From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant slices through these tropes, using Boy's our improbability as the skewering blade."
—John Freeman, The Boston Globe
"The deepest intelligence is poetic, incisive and inordinately funny. Heads up folks. Alex Gilvarry just walked through the door."
—Colum McCann
"In this funny debut, flashy Filipino fashion designer Boy Hernandez sees his American dream become a nightmare when he's ensnared in a terrorist plot and shipped to Guantanamo. Gilvarry nails the couture scene, but Boy's rough journey from Manolo to Gitmo is no joke."
—Andrew Abrahams, People
"Like 30 Rock at its most gleefully savage ... [This] cocktail of themes—immigrant on the make, post-9/11 burlesque, sybaritic send-up of fashion and hipster Brooklyn—goes down smoothly because Gilvarry writes with authority, if often with tongue firmly in cheek ... It's not false praise to say that From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant anticipants our reality."
—Jacob Silverman, The Daily Beast
Awards
2014 "5 Under 35" Award, National Book Foundation
2012 Hornblower Award for First Book, New York City Book Awards, The New York Society Library
2012 Indie Next Pick
2012 Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection
2012 Best New Voice, Quality Paperback Book Club, Bookspan