Kat Hausler Livres

Set against the colorful, yet sometimes strangely cold, backdrop of Manhattan, the stories in this collection are peopled with a very particular breed of heroes, not quite what they're fighting for. Here you will find characters in progress, people still getting to who they a self-conscious student who feels incomplete without a partner, a talented artist blind to the beauty of his own work, a couple who can't bring their love of an idealized past into the present, and an unstable woman whose breakdown causes those around her to realize their own frailty. These everyday heroes all have their own flaws and failings, all fall short time and time again, but struggle on, after worthy but elusive a sense of self, and a connection to the world around them.

Simon Kemper is on the up and up- he' s out of rehab, and his band is gaining moderate success around Berlin. But out of the corner of his eye and over his shoulder, he' s always aware of her. The stalker. She' s at every show, no matter what city. She sends hundreds of postcards to his label. Worst of all, she acts like she knows him. Like she owns him.When the stalker disappears at one of his shows, Simon is the prime suspect. Initially an effort to clear his name, his search for July quickly becomes a deeper psychological quest: to prove that his fears were warranted? That she couldn' t have given up her obsession that easily?The threads of July' s disappearance turn out to be tangled into every corner of Simon' s life: a trusted band member, a tenuous new love interest, a resentful ex, and the self he' s supposedly left behind. Narcissistic, insecure, and consummately relatable, Simon is the anti-hero of his own life-- trying to want to be better; hoping that' s enough.