Making News
My second novel, Making News will be released on July 1st. As the cover suggests, it’s about tabloid media. The publisher hasn’t yet told me whether the newsstand grill is a photo effect, or whether my book is going to weight two kilos more than any other novel in history. Here is the cover blurb:
‘The photo was clearly sexual, all skin and limbs. It was a CCTV image, which looked to be from security footage. Lucas leaned forward to read the accompanying paragraph. Within half a sentence it was as though a foot had crashed through the monitor and kicked his teeth in. He closed his eyes and willed himself to wake up. He checked again. The image was still there. My god, look at the goofy smiles. No wonder the world was laughing. Under normal circumstances, he’d be laughing too. If the face that was front-and-centre didn’t belong to a member of his family.’
Lucas Dekker is celebrity offspring, twice over. His Australian father, Charlie, has recently retired from a stellar football career in the Premier League. His English mother, Monica, is a self-help guru, who has sold millions of books with her pro-family message. But when Charlie’s involvement in a bizarre sex scandal hits the tabloids, the Dekkers’ own family dynamic will never be the same again.
Making News is a darkly hilarious story about celebrity culture, the media and what really goes on behind the smutty front pages that everyone loves to read.
You can purchase Making News online at Readings
You can buy an ebook version at kobo
Reviews
"Making News should come with a warning that it shouldn't be read on public transport... unless you are happy for people to stare at you like a crazy person while you snort with laughter. I could not have loved it more. Without doubt my favourite Australian novel of the year." - Wil Anderson
"As a novel, it hangs coherently and builds with purpose – avoiding the traps sometimes encountered when funny people try the serious business of writing a proper book...Wilson is a novelist who just happens to be hilarious." - The Age
"Wilson has been compared to Ben Elton but to take such a comparison is to do him a The media love Making News by Tony Wilson disservice...Really he is closer to Nick Hornby...Making News is an easy read, full of laughs and hard to put down.’ - The Sydney Morning Herald
"It's difficult to imagine who wouldn't enjoy this snappily written yarn. It's a truly non-guilty pleasure.’ - The West Australian ‘Making News is funny and cynical. Comparisons with Ben Elton and Carl Hiaasen spring to mind." - South Coast Register
"A celebrity story is great, and the more sensational the better. The story behind the front pages is a bit dark, but lots of fun." - Woman's Day
Bookseller and Publisher Magazine
7/7/10,
Lee McGowan
Tony Wilson’s second novel is a scathing commentary on tabloid journalism’s gorge on the greasy spoon of contemporary celebrity. As well as, almost fondly, rewriting football history—Australia defeats Italy in the 2006 World Cup—it offers substantial, if easy, entertainment with a biting wit. Charlie Dekker is a principled, Beckham-like football star who has only recently retired from playing Premier League and Socceroos matches alongside the likes of Cahill, Neil and Schwarzer. His wife, Monica, is a highly strung superstar of the ‘selfhelperati’ circuit. His son, Lucas, is a doe-eyed 16-year-old who prefers writing to football, and wins a trainee stint with the sensationalist British paper The Globe. When Charlie’s entanglement in a sordid scandal threatens to wreck the Dekkers’ respective careers, the young lad’s gonzo idealism puts his family’s dramas and his own moral and ethical dilemma on the front page. Making News is a fast-paced, near- realist melodrama sliced through with box-cutter blade humour. Previous comparisons with Ben Elton and Shane Maloney are not misplaced; it should have no trouble picking up good press.
Lee McGowan works at Riverbend Bookshop in Brisbane
M/C Reviews,
‘Complexity and Intimacy in Making News’
Sue Barker
‘Making News is a light, enjoyable read with believable characters that add a good level of complexity, and intimacy, to carry the story forward. Wilson gently layers the story threads, building the pace as the book progresses, dropping new titbits of information before rolling everything up to a satisfying, and gratifying, end. The characters in this book really come alive and deliver an interesting, enjoyable read.’