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THE STALKER

AN UNTALENTED MR. RIPLEY, A DUMB AMERICAN PSYCHO: A young man combines

boundless self-confidence with perpetual failure and ineptitude as he tries to manipulate

his way into a better life, preying on women in New York City in the early ’90s.

In the same pathologically destructive tenor and satirical edge of works like

YOU or THE SUBSTANCE, Paula Bomer’s THE STALKER is an excoriating character

study that confirms her as a contemporary master of the pitch-black comic novel.

IN THE YEARS SINCE THE #MeToo movement rose to prominence in American culture, the absurdity and horrors of (white) male

privilege have only become more brazen. Moved by the writings of radical feminists like Andrea Dworkin, the case of Gisèle Pelicot,

and much more, Paula Bomer’s new novel The Stalker offers a timely, compelling examination of sociopathy & entitlement.

In laugh-out-loud outrageous and subversive prose, Bomer captures emotional abuses in every order of magnitude through the

portrayal of an everyday predator and his unchecked pretension and privilege. From gaslighting to weaponized incompetence,

Bomer’s dissection reveals an entire playbook of coercions that her antihero Doughty carries out insidiously, often taking advantage

of the gray area between social impropriety and unlawful harm and (mostly) failing upwards despite his lack of self-estimation.

But regardless of any chuckles and groans the book might elicit, The Stalker remains both horrifically serious and darkly clever as

Bomer follows Doughty’s inflated sense of ethnocentrism and the gross distortions of his self-mythologizing, both parts of his

modus operandi.

Fans of depraved, satirically indulgent literary fiction à la Bret Easton Ellis or true crime podcasts about con men like Dirty

John and Who the Hell Is Hamish? will revel in this novel and its portrait of the sociopath as a young loser. Though set in the ’90s,

Doughty’s point of view speaks to today’s escalating violence and unrest in the United States—from Trump

Paula Bomer

Paula Bomer is the author of the novels Tante Eva and Nine Months and the story collections Inside Madeleine and Baby and Other Stories, as well as the essay collection Mystery and Mortality. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and magazines, including New York Magazine, Los Angeles Review of Books, BOMB, Fiction, and The Mississippi Review.

HOT AIR

A joyfully unhinged story of money, marriage, sex, and revenge unspools when a billionaire crashes his hot-air balloon into the middle of a post-pandemic first date.

Joannie hadn’t been on a date in seven years when Johnny invites Joannie and her daughter to dinner. His house is beautiful, his son is sweet, and their first kiss is, well, it’s not the best, but Joannie could convince herself it was nice enough. But when Joannie’s childhood crush, a summer-camp fling turned famous billionaire, crash-lands his hot-air balloon in Johnny’s swimming pool, Joannie dives in. 

Soon she finds herself alighting on a lost weekend with Johnny the bad kisser, Jonathan the billionaire, and Julia, his smart, stunning wife. Does Joannie want Jonathan? Does Julia want her husband? Or Joannie? Or Joannie’s beautiful little girl? Does Johnny want Julia? Does Jonathan want Joannie, or Julia, or maybe, his much younger personal assistant, Vivian, who is tasked to fix it all? A tale of lust and money and lust for money, Hot Air is as astonishing as it is blisteringly funny, a delirious, delicious story for our billionaire era.

MARCY DERMANSKY

MARCY DERMANSKY is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Hot Air Hurricane Girl, Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie, and Twins. She has received fellowships from MacDowell and The Edward F. Albee Foundation. She lives with her daughter in Montclair, NJ.

Jackie Corley

In past lives, Jackie Corley was a reporter, a drone operator, and the publisher of Word Riot. In the current one, she's VP of Content for a radio company. Corley received an MFA from the Bennington College. Her fiction has appeared in BULL, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Redivider and Fourteen Hills, among others. She lives in the Hudson Valley but will always be a Jersey girl at heart.