The Making of Toro is a brilliant and hilarious memoir of what happens when you try too hard to make life into high art.

An author gets an offer from a big publisher to write a book about bullfighting in Mexico. This is his chance to follow in the footsteps of his hero, Hemingway, and exhibit his own literary genius. But he finds the bullfighting tawdry, and spectators seem more interested in the sideshows. The author speaks little Spanish and is dangerously unqualified to write about bullfighting. As his research falters, money runs out, and the deadline approaches, his alter ego, Travis LaFrance, takes over in an attempt to foment real life into something grand and literary.