Shelf Life: Elliot Allagash by Simon Rich
'Saturday Night Live's' youngest writer pens a funny first novel about the world's richest and most Machiavellian high school student.
Genre: Coming-of-age comedy with dark linings
The Pitch: Husky private school outcast Seymour Herson becomes a special project for classmate Elliott Allagash, possibly the world’s richest and most Machiavellian teenager, who uses his fortune and conniving ways to make Seymour the most popular boy on campus.
First line: “My parents always took my side when I was a kid, no matter how much a screwed up. When I smashed my brand-new Sega Genesis during a temper tantrum, they blamed the game ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ for getting me riled up.”
It’s like, you know: Think P.G. Wodehouse or early Paul Rudnick penning a mash-up of Richie Rich and the young supervillain from the Artemis Fowl books.
Don’t hate him because he’s young and connected: Born in 1984 to New York Times editorialist Frank Rich, author and Harvard Lampoon president Simon Rich received a two-book contract from Random House before graduating in 2007. Elliot Allagash is his third book, after the thin humor collections Ant Farm and Free Range Chickens. Oh, and he was hired out of college as the youngest writer in the history of "Saturday Night Live:"