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Escape!
Stephen Fishbach
A propulsive debut novel following a has-been reality TV star and a disgraced producer who get one last shot at redemption on a show set on a remote island, only to discover that the plot twists are beyond what they ever imagined.
Everybody gets the story arc they deserve.
Kent Duvall, a faded reality show winner, just wants another chance at glory—to find his way out of his depressing life and back to his highlight reel. When a scandal is captured on camera at a charity event, he gets his shot, on a new jungle survival show with seven other contestants. Each of them has been cast as a type—Ruddy the bully, Miriam the nerd, Ashley the love interest—but everyone is more than they appear.
The contestants’ goals seem simple—survive the wild, build a raft, win treasure. But Beck Bermann, a reality producer who suffered her own public shaming, sees them as characters in her redemption arc.
As the schemes and strategies spiral out, breakout camps sabotage each other and rival producers struggle to control the storyline. Soon the question becomes less about who will win than who will make it out in one piece.
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Praise for Escape!
“The novel is a wild ride that will keep readers glued to the page the same way they are glued to their screens during their favorite reality competition shows”
—Entertainment Weekly
“This is the Great American Reality TV Book we've been waiting for.”
—Debutiful
“A thrilling, emotionally affecting deep dive into the perilous world of reality television production, in all its manipulative glory. In this sharp page-turner, Survivor maven and former contestant Stephen Fishbach captures the lives of both cast and crew, offering up a gorgeously written, compassionate, but ultimately devastating portrait of the lives of the human beings working inside (and often, crushed by) the entertainment machine.”
—Emily Nussbaum, author of Cue The Sun: The Invention of Reality TV and Staff Writer at The New Yorker
“In Escape!, Stephen Fishbach shows how everything on reality television is artificial—except the humiliation, which is definitely real. It’s a scathing behind-the-scenes exposé, but also a heartfelt and tender story of people being turned into entertainment, then scrambling to edit themselves back into people.”
—Nathan Hill, bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness
“Stephen Fishbach writes with great energy and humor, as well as a deep understanding of human longing.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer, New York Times bestselling author
“Fishbach...
Stephen Fishbach
Stephen Fishbach is a Pushcart Prize–winning writer and former television executive. A two-time Survivor contestant (voted onto the show the second time by more than ten million fans), he’s worked on the network side as a vice president at MTV and freelanced for a reality producers’ trade group. He cohosts a weekly Survivor podcast as well as the literary podcast Paraphrase. Stephen graduated with honors from Yale and received an MFA in fiction at NYU. In 2009 he was named one of People magazine’s hottest bachelors. His short story “To Sharks”—an excerpt from Escape!—was published by One Story and garnered Stephen the Pushcart Prize. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and two daughters.
