Hank Fakes It All

This post originally ran October 13, 2009.

Hank Moody (David Duchovny), of Californication, with his novel, now published by Simon & Schuster.

By Mary Lyn Maiscott

What to make of God Hates Us All, the new—and yet not—novel by, um, Hank Moody. Moody, as you may know, is a Californian-by-way-of-New-York, often blocked writer whose reputation as a brilliant bad-boy novelist rests on God (which was made, to Moody’s soul-blighting horror, into a sappy romantic comedy starring Tom Cruise). And, oh yeah, Moody is fictional, the protagonist of Showtime’s series Californication. The red-white-and-black cover of Moody’s novel has shown up on a few of the series’ episodes, most notably one in which he’s about to give a reading at L.A.’s famous bookstore Book Soup when—naturally, Hank being Hank—he gets into a fight with a man whose wife (ex-wife? it’s hard to keep Hank’s women straight) he’s slept with.

Now God Hates Us All, published by Simon & Schuster, is in real bookstores—is this meta enough for you?—no doubt including Book Soup, complete with that familiar front cover and back-cover copy stating that it’s “a wry literary masterpiece.” Well, who can argue? It’s a bit like the time country singer Garth Brooks took on the persona of rocker Chris Gaines, forcing Katie Couric—though she couldn’t suppress an embarrassed smile—to ask him questions about his devastating (fictional) car accident on the Today show. Next Hank Moody will show up on David Letterman to commiserate about their sexual escapades (hey, Hank, new book title: The Sex Capades). Throw in that David Duchovny, who plays Moody, confessed a while back to being an Internet-porn addict, a problem he (coincidentally?) shares with Charlie, Moody’s agent and best friend, and even your avatar’s head may start to spin.

Curiously, there’s another name attached to God, but only on the title page, and it’s connected to a “with”: Jonathan Grotenstein. Yes, apparently Moody, being essentially nonexistent, needed a little help to write his book, which he received from Grotenstein. I’m going to assume they met at a poker game, because although Simon & Schuster does not acknowledge Moody’s “with” on its Web page for the book, a site search does reveal a Jonathan Grotenstein as the co-author of a book called Poker and subtitled—wait for it—The Real Deal. (I couldn’t find a reference to God on any Web page or profile for Grotenstein, and Showtime holds the copyright.)

So what is the real deal? As “Heather” succinctly posted in a review on God’s Amazon page (#8,069 at the moment, and you know Hank is checking his number, even if he doesn’t let on), “This novel wouldn’t receive the same level of recognition in the real world as within the show, but it’s not bad.” I read it in an afternoon while zonked out on the couch with a virus, and appreciated its easy style. It pretty much zips along like a little Match car, not really doing anything important (belying its nihilistic title) but nonetheless keeping the reader entertained. Unfortunately, its story—confused young man in N.Y.C. with plenty of drugs and a dying mother—can seem like watered-down Jay McInerney, and the Chelsea Hotel scenes pale to vapor in comparison to those in Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, a true literary masterpiece.

But what does “true” have to do with it? Just as in Moody’s world every single woman—even if she’s married—who comes in contact with him is ready to have sex within about five minutes, in his world every book he writes will be “wry,” hip, and as cool as he is, no matter what the publishers, critics, or anyone else thinks. He may be a bad boy, but his fictional nature guarantees that he will never write a bad book.