"An omniscient, objective narrative viewpoint—the Observer—floats ethereally through Lennon’s psychological thriller . . . The Observer’s interest shifts . . . [to] the unhappy, guilt-ridden Louis and Joe, a hulking brute who enjoys killing . . . When they and their potential victims face off, Huber performs the scene as shocking and suspenseful, no small task from the Observer’s more detached perspective." —Publishers Weekly Audio Review

"Lennon has written a realistic novel, with vivid characters and flashes of humor and an evocative mood, that is also a playful, sophisticated meditation on storytelling itself: down-home metafiction." —New York Times

"There are moments here of chilling violence, and of nuanced comedies of manners; the result is a heady novel that distills a host of anxieties into something offbeat and hard to shake." —Star Tribune

"[A] dark and brooding thriller." —SFGate

"It is, simply, brilliant." —Spectrum Culture

"A darkly hilarious examination of human behavior. . . . The characters are so richly developed they resonate as someone familiar--and that's what makes this wonderfully absorbing novel equally funny, terrifying and heartbreaking." —Shelf Awareness

J. Robert Lennon is the author of seven novels, including Familiar, Castle, and Mailman, and a story collection, Pieces for the Left Hand. His fiction as appeared in The Paris Review, Granta, Harper’s Magazine, Playboy, and The New Yorker. He lives in Ithaca, New York, where he teaches writing at Cornell University.