Searching for Intruders: A Novel in Stories

Fresh and clean hardcover copy in good condition with original dustjacket. Signed with personal dedication from the author and invitation card to the book launch. Frisches und sauberes Hardcover-Exemplar in gutem Zustand mit Original-Schutzumschlag. Signiert mit pers�nlicher Widmung des Autors und Einladungskarte zur Buchvorstellung. "Resilience, empathy and a dark sense of humor sustain the well-intentioned perennial loser whose flat but curiously captivating voice guides us through the linked narratives that make up Byler's impressive debut. A walking wounded spawn of Reading, Pa., 34-year-old Wilson Hues vainly battles roaches, blunders into domestic disputes he can neither control nor understand, gets a divorce, takes up a terminally ill lover ("Pollute me, please"), loses her, too, and finally flees the country altogether, seeking affirmation (or maybe just plain solace) through yet another doomed relationship (this time with a diseased animal). Wilson's monotonous litany of woe is interspersed with increasingly disturbing flashbacks to his family's tortuous disintegration, his father's horrific death after a plane crash and finally the brutal double murder of a friend's parents. It is appropriate that Wilson becomes fascinated with Stephen Hawking's descriptions of the matter/antimatter collisions that make up the universe: he himself is one of those stubborn particles whose repeated collisions refuse to yield any sort of universal resolution. Byler's novel-in-installments winds down with a bleak metaphor for Wilson's alienation and his perennially self-defeating search for love: he briefly adopts a stray dog in a South American country with a federal culling policy. In disciplined and straightforward prose, Byler creates a dystopic vision of roadside America, full of the doomed and damned, perfect January reading. (Jan.)Forecast: This promising first novel is supported by a five-city author tour and a 15-city NPR campaign, and should provide Byler with a firm base on which to build his career." ISBN 9780066212944