The Psycho Ex Game

By Andy Prieboy and Merrill Markoe

Book Overview

Lisa Roberty is a successful screenwriter with an impoverished social life who's enduring a demoralizing job at the mind-numbing sitcom You Go, Girl. Grant Repka is an obscure indie rock musician who, in his forties, finds his career surprisingly resurrected with the success of his comic operetta about the doomed romance of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson. When Grant and Lisa meet after one of his shows, sparks don't immediately fly--but e-mail addresses are exchanged. A my-book-for-your-CD trade and a couple of e-mails later, Lisa tells Grant that she enjoys his song "My Psycho Ex," but warns him that where psycho-exes are concerned, she's pretty sure she "could drink him under the table."

Little does she know that this will become the opening salvo in an epic e-mail battle dubbed the Psycho Ex Game, a storytelling competition in which horrific tales of dysfunctional love and living with lunatics are volleyed with glee. The rules are simple; the point system, unique: the experiences that would normally leave someone running for the therapist's office (humiliation, degradation, and complicity in psychotic behavior) just might win match point in the Psycho Ex Game. Now it's Grant vs. Lisa as the wretched tales of his ex, the Junkie Queen of Darkness, vie with the woe inflicted by her ex, a tantrum-throwing actor/director widely known as Mr. Summer Box Office Record-Holder.

As the correspondence evolves, it surprises Lisa by offering her the kind of intimacy she has never shared with a man in the same room. Before long, what started as a friendly competition becomes a road map to an unlikely couple's growing involvement, leaving both Grant and Lisa secretly wondering, "If we were to get involved, which one of us is potentially the next Psycho Ex?"

Written in alternating he said/she said chapters, The Psycho Ex Game is shot through with the acerbic humor of Merrill Markoe and the mordant observations that have made Andy Prieboy a literate voice in rock. The Psycho Ex Game is a hilarious dissection of injuries sustained on the front lines of romance--and the careful nursing that gets us battleready once again.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812969057
• ISBN13: 9780812969054
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Villard Books
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Love love love love loved it!

I don't know what to say about this book except that I loved it to death, and I hate almost everything. It's as though an angry Jane Austen and a sardonic Flann O'Brien met and decided to write a book together. It's smart. It's funny. It's true. As for the person who whined about how unrealistic it is that Grant and Lisa started every e-mail with "Dear Grant" and "Dear Lisa"--kiddo, back in the day when manners and literacy still had some shred of a hold on American society, that was how intelligent people began communications with each other. Now that we live in a world where our nation apparently has an official "Skank Laureate" (a position now held by Paris Hilton, though there are any numbers of contenders for the crown), you may be somewhat unfamiliar with the concept. Fortunately, the writers of this book have manners, literacy, and intelligence in spades. Big gushy virtual fangirl kisses to both of them.

Get out your decoder ring...

As a long-time Andy Prieboy fan, I had fun translating the book from it's fictional names to the real ones! I was one of those dedicated fans at "The Empire Club" while the whole musical was being developed/fine tuned. I was also a regular at The Uncab where Merrill Markoe had performed. It was great to hear all of the old stories again that Andy would recall during his gigs. After moving away from LA, it's been years since I've had the honor of seeing his brilliant shows. Being out of the loop, it was also a bit of an update about the status of the musical. I am excited to hear that more books are to come and that the musical may finally get off its feet. Thank God he didn't "sell out" to do the musical "their way". *That* would have been too WTWL! Good luck Andy - I hope you become a hit AND rich to spite them all!

Really enjoyed it.

I bought the book at the urging of a friend and didn't really expect to get in to it as much as I did. but it really hit home. THe combination of funny and painfully honest was great. I seriously couldn't put it down until I finished it. I especially recommend it to anyone who has had love go spectacularly wrong for them.

Feel instantly better about all your Exes. Buy this book.

With its biting wit and unflinchingly honesty, the Psycho Ex Game is harder to walk away from than a co-dependent relationship. I couldn't put it down. This book is a must-read for anyone who's been stuck in a bad relationship and wondered how they got there.

Yikes. Its my Life.

I never related to characters more strongly than I did to those in Psycho Ex GAme. I am embarrassed to admit this is the story of my life.Once I started reading I couldnt stop.THen I bought copies for all my friends.