The Psycho Ex Game

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.

"In this collaborative effort, the authors explore the anxiety of personal interaction versus the safety of e-mailing and the dubious trustworthiness of cyber friendships. With her characteristic sharp-witted angst, former David Letterman writer, humorist and novelist Markoe (It's My F — -ing Birthday) alternates chapters with music veteran Prieboy, who is perhaps less witty, but twice as angsty. Hip 40-somethings Lisa Roberty and Grant Repka are, respectively, a television writer and rock 'n' roller in L.A. After a brief and slightly awkward introduction backstage at his Tommy! (Lee!): The Musical, they begin an e-mail correspondence. At first it's just friendly and benign, but after a while they begin comparing scars acquired on the battlefield of love. Grant shares horrifying stories of his doomed relationship with a heroin addict, while Lisa, unaware that she's writing to Grant and his Pamela Anderson — esque girlfriend Winnie, reveals years of emotional abuse inflicted by her very famous ex, Hollywood A-lister Nick Blake. Markoe's misery is less comical than in her previous novel ('Love relationships seemed to be the place where perfectly nice men went to become nightmarish monsters'), and Lisa seems a derivative of Birthday's unnamed protagonist, with whom she shares a crazy mother and love of sake. Prieboy's prose is darker and more poetic ('Like my mouth was a tiny, festive pink-and-white theater where my monologues died and clown act bombed'), and their styles complement each other nicely. Unfortunately, the concept is more compelling than the finished product, a shame since these two are talented storytellers. This may not appeal to a mainstream audience, but could secure a cult following. Agent, Melanie Jackson. (June 29)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

When screenwriter Lisa Roberty meets obscure rock musician Grant Repka, little does she know that they will become involved 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.

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 growinginvolvement, 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.