The Apartment: A Novel

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, December 2013: At times meandering, but also but weirdly captivating, this debut novel follows an unnamed man shambling through the snowy streets of an unnamed Eastern European city (Prague?)--an ancient place where intense joy and intense sorrow are extinct --on a freezing-cold day as he and his not-quite-girlfriend search for an apartment. That s basically it. And while it never quite launches, the defiantly moody and sullen tone has admirable charms. I felt I should ve been wearing a scarf while reading. And smoking. And drinking. Eventually we learn bits of backstory: the man is an Iraq war vet who later returned to Baghdad and made a fortune. His apparent guilt, and the unspoken horrors he seems to have witnessed (or perpetrated?) give the book its emotional heft. Quirky, poetic, and flaunting some truly stunning moments, this is a book to give into, and a writer to watch. --Neal Thompson