The Parallel Apartments by Bill Cotter

The Parallel Apartments by Bill Cotter

Justine Moppett is 34, pregnant, and fleeing an abusive relationship in New York to dig up an even more traumatic childhood in Austin. Waiting for her there is a cast of more than a dozen misfits ? a hemophobic aspiring serial killer, a deranged soprano opera singer, a debt-addicted entrepreneur-cum-madam, a matchmaking hermaphrodite ? each hurtling toward their own calamities, and, ultimately, toward each other. A Texan Gabriel García Márquez who writes tragicomic twists reminiscent of John Kennedy Toole, Bill Cotter produces some of the most visceral, absurd, and downright hilarious sentences to be found in fiction today. The Parallel Apartments is a bold leap forward for a writer whose protean talents, whose sheer exuberance for language and what a novel can do, marks him as one of the most exciting stylists in America.

Bill Cotter has attended numerous international exhibitions and is a long-time world's-fair fan. He is the author of eight previous books for Arcadia on fairs, as well as a frequent contributor to other books, magazines, and documentaries on the subject. He has also given numerous talks on the subject. His photographs have been featured in a number of museum shows, and he runs two prominent websites dedicated to the study and appreciation of fairs.