Griffin Hansbury

The Nostalgist Griffin Hansbury Advanced Readers Copy edition

A searingly honest and darkly comic debut novel about post-9/11 New York City and a lonely young man whose longing for connection drives him to pose as a missing woman's grief-stricken boyfriend.

Stoop-shouldered and balding beneath a porkpie hat, Jonah Soloway is an old man before his time. Effectively orphaned when an SUV took his mother's life, he has retreated into a solitary world of vintage artifacts and comic books. But he longs to make a human connection--even if it means twisting the truth to get it. When he dials the number on Rose Oliveri's 9/11 missing poster and reaches her mother, Vivian, one innocent lie leads to another, and before Jonah knows it, reality becomes uncertain even to him.

Stalked by Rose's ghost, Jonah finds himself falling deeper into his own fabrications as he wanders a city turned surreal in terrorism's settling dust. But when he meets Jane, an irreverent student of psychoanalysis, he'll be forced to choose between illusion and the possibility of a true relationship.

Both a poetic journey into the heart of post-9/11 New York and a darkly comic commentary on how we cope with loss, The Nostalgist is a striking debut novel from a masterful new author.

Praise for The Nostalgist:
"The gifted Griffin Hansbury has written a highly intelligent and haunting novel, set in New York City during the early wake of 9/11, that is as much about longing for a past that never existed as it is about mourning for actual lives lost. The Nostalgist is a moving, resonant, and distinctive debut."
--Ralph Sassone, author of The Intimates

"Like Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, Griffin Hansbury's lyrical, solidly crafted novel brings you deep into the fabric of New York City and right into the minds of ordinary New Yorkers who are actually more extraordinary than they think. Hansbury captures the very weird post-9/11 months with honesty, humor, precision, and heart."
--Mike Albo, author of The Underminer