Love and Lament - Other Press

PETER MATTEI
THE DEEP WHATSIS
Meet Eric Nye: hipster, player, philosopher, drunk, sociopath.
Eric is a ruthless and talented young Chief Idea Officer at a
New York City–based ad agency, in charge of downsizing his
department, which entails firing dozens of longtime employ-
ees before their pensions kick in. In his free time, he guzzles
bottles of the finest Sancerre, balances a hodgepodge of
prescription pills, obsesses over his lavish furnishings, and
chases women.
And then one day he meets Intern, who’s name he can’t
remember—it might be Megan or Caitlin or Sari—at a bar in
Bushwick. After a few drunken sexual encounters with her, he
loses his appetite for food—and seems to be losing his mind
too. Is she in love with him, or is she stalking him just to make
trouble? Will she be the cause of his nervous breakdown, or
the cure for his sociopathic tendencies?
A timely meditation on the inherent absurdity of corpo-
ratism and our ubiquitous culture of branding, The Deep
Whatsis follows a brilliant anti-hero’s quest for contemporary
self-identity, with echoes of American Psycho, Cosmopolis,
and Fight Club. It’s a gripping and hilarious satire of hipsters,
consumerism, contemporary art—and anything else that
crosses the narrator’s path—about a lost soul navigating a
toxic corporate world and, against all odds, stumbling toward
redemption.
PETER MATTEI is a writer and director
working in both theater and film, and
has written pilots for HBO and other net-
works. Love in the Time of Money was
his first feature film, which he wrote and
directed. The script was developed at
the Sundance Filmmakers Lab in 1998,
and was inspired by Arthur Schnitzler’s
play La Ronde. He lives in Brooklyn.
FALL 2013
Pages: 250 approx.
Rights: World
FICTION
Agent: 3 Arts Entertainment, Richard Abate
(rabate@3arts.com)
OTHER PRESS • 7