Torture the Artist

Vincent Spinetti is the archetypal tortured artist—a sensitive young writer who suffers from alienation, parental neglect, poverty, depression, alcoholism, illness, nervous breakdowns, and unrequited love. However, he is unaware that these torments are due to the secret manipulations of New Renaissance, an experimental organization that hopes to improve mindless main-stream culture by raising writers who emphasize artistic quality over commerce.
New Renaissance hires ex-musician Harlan Eiffler to manipulate its most promising prodigy, Vincent. Wickedly antisocial and disgusted by what passes for entertainment in the twenty-first century, Harlan ensures that Vincent remains a true artist. He poses as Vincent’s manager and nurtures his career, all the while continuing to
torture him.
Smart, funny, and poignant, Torture the Artist examines the timeless idea that true art can only result from suffering.
“If you could bottle Joey Goebel's imagination and sell it by the glass, we'd all be in rehab. Torture the Artist – which addresses the premise that art, like grapes in a wine press, can be squeezed out of an artist by various torments – is as full of surprises as a brand new vintage, and Joey Goebel is the wunderkind of contemporary American fiction.”
– Ed McClanahan, author of The Natural Man and Famous
People I Have Known

“In Torture the Artist, Joey Goebel performs a mad exorcism on the society of the spectacle, unearthing the secrets of the American dream, doing it with the inventiveness of a twenty-first-century Mark Twain fueled by love and sorrow.”
Peter Plate, author of Fogtown and Police and Thieves

“Wickedly ingenious…Goebel's ebulliently funny writing sparkles off the page. He's created a whole, living, breathing world, filled with vividly sympathetic souls, and deliciously evil ones…one of the most interesting and engaging books I've read in a while, a smart, witty, deeply moving parable about the things we do for art -- and for love.”
Caroline Leavitt, Boston Globe

“So as Fitzgerald tagged his generation’s excesses and delusions in The Great Gatsby and Bret Easton Ellis did the same in the 1980s with Less Than Zero, Goebel grabs the Zeitgeist by the nape of the neck and gives it a good twirl in Torture the Artist…hilarious, anarchic, and – this is no faint praise – adolescent.”
Pages Magazine

“…lively new novel…[with] well-drawn characters and smooth, highly readable prose.”
–Baltimore City Paper

“Surprisingly funny, anything-but-predictable story…This novel, a pointed commentary on the media machine that continuously grinds away at our culture, is by turns hilarious, thought-provoking, chilling, and sad. Goebel (The Anomolies) is a quirky, fresh, and relevant voice for our time.”
Library Journal STARRED review

“…a trip down the dark side of creativity…[Goebel] is one of the fresh young voices in contemporary fiction. Although he’s only 24, his writing and perceptiveness is that of a more seasoned writer. Keep an eye on this talented author.”
Kentucky Monthly


“If Franz Kafka had lived into the 21st century and were as funny as Jon Stewart, he might have written a novel something like Torture the Artist…[with] wonderfully funny dialogue and observations, written in flawlessly crafted sentences that make you want to phone up like-minded friends and say, ‘Listen to this. Have you ever heard anything more perfect?’”
Courier-Journal

“Goebel takes his strange characters on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, through a world filled with a strange brew of cynicism, satire, humor and real affection, a bizarre combination of imagination, artifice and insanity.”
Curledup.com

“Torture The Artist is a great piece of writing that will stick with you long after the last page is turned… another great book from this young author. And I can hope that we have more like this in the future from Goebel…no one is really writing stories like he is.”
Indieworkshop.com