Looker by Laura Sims
A dazzling, razor-sharp debut novel about a woman whose obsession with the beautiful actress on her block drives her to the edge.I've never crossed their little fenced-in garden, of course. I stand on the sidewalk in front of the fern-and-ivy-filled planter that hangs from the fence--placed there as a sort of screen, I'm sure--and have a direct line of view into the kitchen at night. I'm grateful they've never thought to install blinds. That's how confident they are. No one would dare stand in front of our house and watch us, they think. And they're probably right: except for me. In this taut and thrilling debut, an unraveling woman, unhappily childless and recently separated, becomes fixated on her neighbor--the beautiful, famous actress. The unnamed narrator can't help noticing with wry irony that, though she and the actress live just a few doors apart, they are separated by a chasm of professional success and personal fulfillment. The actress, a celebrity with her face on the side of every bus, shares a gleaming brownstone with her handsome husband and their three adorable children, while the narrator, working in a dead-end job, lives in a run-down, three-story walk-up with her ex-husband's cat. When an interaction with the actress at the annual block party takes a disastrous turn, what began as an innocent preoccupation spirals quickly, and lethally, into a frightening and irretrievable madness. Darkly witty and searingly sharp, Looker is enormously entertaining--part tightly coiled Hitchcockian thriller and part send-up of life in the Instagram-ready city. Driven by a fresh and fearlessly original voice, this slender novel packs a powerful punch.
Laura Sims is the author of two books of poetry: STRANGER (Fence Books, 2009); and PRACTIC, RESTRAINT (Fence Books, Alberta Prize, 2005); and of four chapbooks, including Corrections (Bronze Skull Press, 2006) and Bank Book (Answer Tag Press, 2004). Her work was included in the anthology, The City Visible: Chicago Poetry for the New Century (Cracked Slab Books, 2007), and individual poems have appeared in the journals: DENVER QUARTERLY, Colorado Review, AUFGABE, CRAYON, Cab/Net, Octopus, First Intensity, 26, How2, Parcel, 6X6, La Petite Zine, Columbia Poetry Review, JUBILAT, Lit, and FENCE, among others. She has published book reviews in Boston Review, Jacket, and Rain Taxi; an overview essay on the work of Diane Williams in The Review of Contemporary Fiction (2003); and the article, David Markson and the Problem of the Novel, in New England Review (2008). She is currently writing essays on the short poem, and working on a poetry manuscript, tentatively titled My god is this a man. She is a co-editor of Instance Press, a curator for the Segue Reading Series, and a volunteer at 826. She lives with Corey and their cat Gomi-chan in the Carroll Gardens neighborhood of Brooklyn.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781501199110 |
| ISBN 10 | 1501199110 |
| Title | Looker |
| Author | Laura Sims |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Scribner Book Company |
| Year published | 2019-01-08 |
| Number of pages | 192 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |