“Everyone knows Custer died at Little Bighorn,” declares celebrity author Eli Cash, resplendent in a white Stetson as he walks and talks about his latest novel to a hungry press pack. “What this book presupposes is … maybe he didn’t?”
Recently, this line from Wes Anderson’s iconic family saga The Royal Tenenbaums – delivered with impeccably weird comic timing by Owen Wilson – has been popping into my head on a regular basis. At first, I couldn’t work out why. Then I realised: Cash’s insouciant elevator pitch for his fantastical history might as well be the template for an increasingly ubiquitous type of TV series.
