Partly a roman à clef, partly a paradic "novel-within-a-novel," Writing for Love and Money is perhaps best described as a comic odyssey into the world of the bestseller, a tour guide for writing a blockbuster. Playfully weaving literary puns and allusions into an enthralling narrative, Perutz allows Kate, assisted by a host of "real" and fictional authors, to learn page by page the ingredients of popular fiction. While some critics may argue about the genre-is the book a novel? a memoir? an expose?-Perutz''s readers will agree that Writing for Love and Money is one of the funniest nonnovels, nonmemoirs, nonexposes they''ve read.