From Library Journal:

The unreachably celestial ambitions of the Normal family have failed to prepare Liza for her 15-minute birthright, let alone superstardom. And her indefatigable mediocrity (spawned at the wading end of an overchlorinated gene pool) seems intent on propelling her toward a life of invariable humiliation and gloriously tragicomic failure.

What Liza does have going for her is the unshakable perseverance of a Gong Show contestant, combined with the sort of resiliency evolution has bestowed to the cockroach. And she'll need both if she is to survive the brutality of an ever-failing, fame-at-any-price quest through the seediest sections of show business for the exceedingly desperate.

Wilson's own talent for satire proves a satisfying feast; her sarcastic depiction of pop culture's insatiable fame-lust reveals that hollow, pornographic world for what it is.

An explosive literary debut fueled by a cast of ingeniously drawn characters and a no-holds-barred, sardonic humor, this debut novel is sure to make a splash.

FROM THE PUBLISHER Liza Normal wants fame worse than air, food, sleep, or self-preservation. Her talents are slim, but she's been raised on a crash diet of Hollywood "I-can-do-it!" mythology, game-show anthems, and Love's Baby Soft-scented teen dreams. According to the delusional logic inherent in these value-starved sources, the key to Making It Big as a pop star is to simply want it badly enough and Believe In Yourself (and to follow the B-movie template for becoming one of life's golden winners - see page 20).

And so, innocent Liza's disco-ball fantasies are bowled down the yellow brick road, on a direct collision course with that whirling hall of hammers: Reality. She endures a wretched series of mishaps on the road to failure: disastrous love affairs, scorching humiliations. But Liza, a far better human than the two-dimensional starlet she thinks she wants to be, is indestructible.

FROM THE CRITICS Publishers Weekly Playwright and Salon columnist Wilson made a name for herself four years ago with her essay collection, A Massive Swelling. In her raucous, hilarious debut novel, she covers similar ground: the ugly side of fame and America's unhealthy obsession with celebrity. The dark Gen-X fairy tale follows the adventures of Liza Normal, a would-be starlet with far more ambition than looks or talent. Saddled with a frightening stage mother, Peppy, Liza-"not a girl ruled by the logic of self-preservation"-endures humiliation after humiliation as she acts in an unintentionally campy family musical, turns punk, dates a drug dealer and a washed-up boy band member, goes to rehab and tries unsuccessfully to make it big in Hollywood. The indefatigable Liza finally triumphs in Las Vegas, creating a stage show based on a character from the softcore slash fiction she's written throughout her travails.

Wilson goes out on a limb with her verbal extravagance, and readers may find her post-Eggers postmodern asides to the audience (whom she calls "Young Readerlings") and fancy fonts a bit too-too. But her spirited sendup of celebrity worship is laugh-out-loud funny. Agent, Bill Clegg.) Forecast: Wilson's public persona is as flamboyant as her writing, and the novel should garner plenty of media attention, though it may be a more challenging sell than A Massive Swelling.