May 1, 2007

Reality Bites

“The Big Question,” by Chuck Barris

I am going to go with c) The Stranger.

Is that your final answer?

Yes. (Dramatic pause.)

I’m sorry to say the correct answer is d) The Cat in the Hat. To the death chamber!

No one has ever died from losing, and, according to Chuck Barris’s The Big Question, that’s exactly what’s wrong with reality television.

In his follow-up to Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Barris is willing to bet that, just like the studio audience, you’ll be riveted by The Big Question, a quiz show with an obscenely large prize ($100,000,000) and an insanely large risk (miss your big question, and you are executed on live TV).

The inspired satire weaves together the stories of a diverse cast of characters, all of whom have a particular reason for pressing their luck to the point of putting their lives in jeopardy.

Of course, not everyone in the novel comes out a winner. But does the story offer some lovely parting gifts for the reader?

You bet your life.

Available online at amazon.com.