The iPhone . . . With Apologies to Nikolai Gogol

by Alex Alben

Overview

A Hollywood executive suffers a life-changing event when he loses his iPhone-- only to discover that the device has taken on a life of its own.

In this humorous send-up of a Nikolai Gogol short story, the author chronicles how the life of a prominent movie studio executive gradually deteriorates when he loses his iPhone, his job and his mojo.

Meanwhile, the iPhone comes to life with hysterical consequences.

A long short-story of approximately 5,000 words.

Alex Alben is the author of "Our Man in Mongoa," a comedy spy novel published by Scribners.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940014126564
Publisher:	The Zeppo Press
Publication date:	04/10/2012
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	190 KB

About the Author

Alex Alben is the author of a comedy spy novel, "Our Man in Mongoa," described by humorist Stan Freberg as "Ludlum with Laughs . . . The spy novel will never be the same!" Ray Bradbury praised the novel: "It would be a better, happier, funnier world if there were more books like Our Man in Mongoa, and more authors like Alex Alben."

Alben writes a guest opinion column for "The Seattle Times." His work has also appeared in "The New York Times Magazine."

"The iPhone . . . With Apologies to Nikolai Gogol," is inspired by Gogol's story about a 19th Century Russian official who mysteriously loses his nose.

He lives in Seattle, Washington, where he once inadvertently dropped a cell phone into Lake Washington.

Editorial Reviews

Alex Alben, author of the screwball spy thriller, "Our Man in Mongoa," has returned to his humorous trade with "The iPhone," a send-up of Nikolai Gogol's short story, "The Nose," with a modern twist. A combination of serious social commentary and good clean fun, "The iPhone" is both a hilarious, biting social commentary on Hollywood/L.A. inanity as well as a cautionary tale about our overdependence on all things technological. Here, instead of the protagonist's nose running off and posing as a m

Steve Sulmeyer

What a delicious send-up! LA, Hollywood, Tech -- each gets their turn under under Alben's magnifying glass, squirming a little while tracked by the focused rays of the sun. Alben gives life not only to the main character, but also to a sort of happy distopian anthropomorphization of technology that's not far away. His witty, often wicked, insights on character and place give this story waves of humor mixed with a subtle kind of warning: When we seek better to control our world through technology

Martin Hamburger

Alex Alben, who took on Graham Greene and John Le Carre in his wonderfully witty spy novel spoof "Our Man in Mongoa," this time draws his inspiration from Gogol's 19th century Russian classic "The Nose." In Gogol, an army major loses his nose and finds, to his horror, that the proboscis has taken on a life of its own. In Alben, the hero is an entertainment executive, and he loses something far more important than his nose: his iPhone, an appendage that is not only his lifeline to the industry, b

Jeff Schwager