Trailer Park Tuesday: Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr.

Welcome to Trailer Park Tuesday, a showcase of new book trailers and, in a few cases, previews of book-related movies. Unless their last name is Grisham or King, authors will probably never see their trailers on the big screen at the local cineplex. And that's a shame because a lot of hard work goes into producing these short marriages between book and video. So, if you like what you see, please spread the word and help these videos go viral.

Ron Currie Jr. (author) meets Ron Currie Jr. (character).  That's the funny, quirky premise of this book trailer advertising Currie's new novel Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles.  The book by the author of Everything Matters! blurs the line between fiction and autobiography and has already earned praise from Publishers Weekly who called it "a metafictional tangle of debauchery and technological anxiety told from the viewpoint of a troubled young writer…Told in a bouncy, pinball style, this darkly droll novel is never boring."  Here's how the publisher, Viking, describes the loop-de-loop plot:

Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles is told from the point of the view of a writer—one who in many ways resembles the real Ron Currie, Jr.—who has retreated to a tropical island after a series of devastating incidents: the death of his father, the destruction of his latest manuscript in a fire, and the disintegration of his relationship with a woman, Emma, whom he has loved since childhood. Rather than finding solace and inspiration in paradise, he descends into a miasma of alcohol, careless destruction, and casual comfort with a spring-breaking co-ed. A botched suicide attempt transforms into a successful fake suicide, providing him the opportunity to flee, and he leaves a new manuscript, mostly about Emma, behind. As it turns out, nothing guarantees literary success like the posthumous discovery of a love story, especially one in which readers can discern their own desire and heartbreak. However, the sudden reappearance of the author quickly shatters the good will his death engendered, and he discovers that above all the world seeks truth, even in fiction.

In the video, author and character (played by Benjamin Katz) go toe-to-toe in rounds of boxing, golf, Scrabble, and crossword puzzles.  They even try to outdrink each other.  But it's all to no avail.  "There is no competition that we can engage in that's not going to end up in a tie," Author Currie tells Character Currie.  "We're practically the same person."  The trailer zips right along, bouncing like the aforementioned pinball.  And it all ends with a literal punch-line.  Look for Currie's doppelganger novel in bookstores next month.