The Nostalgist

A young man longing for personal connection poses as a missing woman’s grief-stricken boyfriend in post—9/11 New York.

Stoop-shouldered and balding beneath a porkpie hat, Jonah Soloway is an old man before his time. Estranged from his astrophysicist father and effectively orphaned when an SUV took his mother’s life, Jonah longs to make a human connection—even if it means lying to get it. When he calls the phone number on Rose Oliveri’s 9/11 missing poster and reaches her mother, Vivian, one lie gives birth to another and another, and before Jonah knows it, the truth becomes indiscernible even to him.

Stalked by Rose’s ghost and desperate to keep the Oliveris from uncovering his lie, Jonah finds himself adrift in a city he no longer recognizes and more alone than ever.

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