Arthur Nersesian

Mary Bellanova came home to her east village apartment, cooked dinner, and fought with her boyfriend, Primo. but soon mary realized that Primo's silence in front of the tv set was more than just one of his bad moods: primo was actually dead. other guys had abandoned mary before, but Primo's exit was by far the most unique. And suddenly Mary's life - defined so far by a string of temp jobs and unfinished short stories - takes off on a tantalizing adventure as she follows a trail of Primo's ex-lovers. Arthur Nersesian, who created a howling new york odyssey in his smash hit the fuck-up, captures the spirit of the city itself - jolting and full of surprise - in this powerful new novel edged with black humor and poignancy.

This is the darkly hilarious odyssey of an anonymous slacker. He's a perennial couch-surfer, an aspiring writer searching for himself in spite of himself, and he's just trying to survive. But life has other things in store for the fuck-up. From being dumped by his girlfriend to getting fired for asking for a raise, from falling into a robbery to posing as a gay man to keep his job at a porno theater, the fuck-up's tragi-comedy is perfectly realized by Arthur Nersesian, who manages to create humor and suspense out of urban desperation. "Read it and howl," says Bruce Benderson (author of User), "and be glad it didn't happen to you."