Stacey D'Erasmo

The Complicities

The first work of nonfiction by Stacey D'Erasmo, author of the New York Times Notable Books Tea and The Sky Below "What is the nature of intimacy, of what happens in the space between us? And how do we, as writers, catch or reflect it on the page?" Stacey D'Erasmo's insightful and illuminating study examines the craft and the contradictions of creating relationships not only between two lovers but also between friends, family members, acquaintances, and enemies in fiction. She argues for a more honest, more complex portrait of the true nature of the connections and missed connections among characters and, fascinatingly, between the writer and the reader. D'Erasmo takes us deep into the structure and grammar of these intimacies as they have been portrayed by such writers as Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, D. H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, and William Maxwell, and also by visual artists and filmmakers. She asks whether writing about intimacy is like staring straight into the sun, but it is her own brilliance that dazzles in the piercing and original book, The Art of Intimacy.

The Space Between

The Art of Intimacy

A Creative Inquiry

Long Run

An extended family living in San Francisco faces the approaching breakdown of a troubled adolescent boy and the tribulations caused by the difficulties of gay parenthood.

A Seahorse Year

Working as an obituary writer at a failing newspaper in lower Manhattan in the wake of 9/11, thirty-seven-year-old Gabriel Callahan has a halfhearted approach to life, until a brush with his own mortality sends him to Mexico on a quest to put himself back together and transform his life.

The Sky Below

A San Francisco family copes with a teenage son’s mental illness in “a wonderful book, with characters that bounce off the page” (Elizabeth Strout). Named a Best Book of the Year by Newsday and the San Francisco Chronicle In this “profound, heart-wrenching, and resonant” Lambda Award–winning novel, a quintessentially modern family is transformed by the mental breakdown of their adolescent son (Francisco Goldman). When Christopher disappears from his San Francisco home, his extended family comes together in a frantic search. But the sixteen-year-old is in much more trouble than they know, and their attempts to both support and save him will challenge their assumptions about themselves and one another. In “unflinching prose that’s both descriptive and soulful,” Stacey D’Erasmo explores the ways in which love moves us to actions that have both redemptive and disastrous consequences—sometimes in the same heartbeat (Time Out New York). “Open A Seahorse Year and be mesmerized,” raved the Advocate of this exquisitely crafted novel that is “both deeply satisfying and quietly subversive” (The New York Times Book Review). A winner of the Ferro-Grumley Award for Fiction and other honors, A Seahorse Year is “a stunning achievement” (Suzan Sherman). “[D’Erasmo] writes with a graceful, sometimes devastating directness, in clear, crisp phrases lined with subtle lyricism.” —The Boston Globe “Alternating perspectives and controlled, nuanced writing bring depth and compassion to each character . . . [and] make D’Erasmo an author to watch.” —Library Journal “After turning a page or two of A Seahorse Year you’ll know you’re into something special.” —Out magazine

A Novel

Disappearing for years after a meteoric rise in the indie rock scene, powerhouse singer Anna sells the last of her resources to finance a comeback album and reclaim an ultimate transcendent moment on the stage. By the award-winning author of The Art of Intimacy. 40,000 first printing.

Wonderland

From a rising literary star “in the tradition of Carol Shields and A. S. Byatt” comes this luminous story of a contemporary man’s metamorphosis. Andrea Barrett and Michael Cunningham have lauded Stacey D’Erasmo for the beauty of her language and her ability to create worlds that leave a lasting impression. In her new novel, D’Erasmo reaches back to Ovid for inspiration in this tale of how the mythic animates our everyday lives. At thirty-seven, Gabriel Collins works halfheartedly as an obituary writer at a fading newspaper in lower Manhattan, which, since 9/11, feels like a city of the dead. This once dreamy and appealing boy has turned from a rebellious adolescent to an adult who trades in petty crimes.His wealthy, older boyfriend is indulgent of him—to a point. But after a brush with his own mortality, Gabriel must flee to Mexico in order to put himself back together. By novel’s end, we know all of Gabriel’s ratty little secrets, but by dint of D’Erasmo’s spectacular writing, we exult in the story of an imperfect man who—tested by a world that is often too much for him—rises to meet the challenge.

Stacey D'Erasmo

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