Christopher Moore (whom I’ve never read–I just stumbled across his website) has a list of “funny books” he recommends, and I liked enough of the ones I knew to try ones I didn’t, like this one. A real bear and a failed novelist exchange lives accidentally. The bear finds the writer’s manuscript, gives himself the name “Hal Jam,” and heads to New York, where he’s an overnight success. We meet agent Chum Boykins, publisher Elliot Gadson, publicist Zou Zou Sharr, etc…all broad caricatures, literary phonies who see in Hal not a wild animal but a rough-hewn genius like Hemingway, their ticket to success. Meanwhile the writer is meeting weird country types like Vinal Pinette in the Maine Woods. There are flashes of laugh-out loud humor, especially the bear’s attempts at conversation (he learns a few words, which combined with emperor’s-new-clothes syndrome gets him as far), but basically it’s the meat of a mildly funny short story dragged out into a contrived novel.