Arthur Nersesian is the author of eight novels, including The Fuck-Up (Akashic, 1997 & MTV Books/Simon & Schuster, 1999), Chinese Takeout (HarperCollins), Manhattan Loverboy (Akashic), Suicide Casanova (Akashic), dogrun (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster), and Unlubricated (HarperCollins). He is also the author of East Village Tetralogy, a collection of four plays. He lives in New York City.
Books
Suicide Casanova
WHAT DO BILL CLINTON, JAMES MCGREEVEY, WOODY ALLEN, MICHAEL JACKSON, AND OJ SIMPSON HAVE IN COMMON with Leslie Cauldwell, protagonist of Nersesians latest offering? They are Suicide Casanovas. What compels powerful men in the prime of their professional lives to risk so much? Following the commercial success of his first four novels, Suicide Casanova presents a psychosexual thriller, a dramatic departure from his youthful black comedies: Humbert Humbert without the pedophile penchant, Hannibal Lechter without the appetitite.
Dogrun
Mary Bellanova came home to her east village apartment, cooked dinner, and fought with her boyfriend, primo. but soon Mary realized that primo’s silence in front of the tv set was more than just one of his bad moods: primo was actually dead.
other guys had abandoned mary before,but primo’s exit was by far the most unique. and suddenly mary’s life — defined so far by a string of temp jobs and unfinished short stories — takes off on a tantalizing adventure as she follows a trail of primo’s ex-lovers.
Arthur Nersesian, who created a howling New York odyssey in his smash hit the fuck-up, captures the spirit of the city itself — jolting and full of surprise — in this powerful new novel edged with black humor and poignancy.
The Fuck-Up
This is the darkly hilarious odyssey of an anonymous slacker. He’s a perennial couch-surfer, an aspiring writer searching for himself in spite of himself, and he’s just trying to survive. But life has other things in store for the fuck-up. From being dumped by his girlfriend to getting fired for asking for a raise, from falling into a robbery to posing as a gay man to keep his job at a porno theater, the fuck-up’s tragi-comedy is perfectly realized by Arthur Nersesian, who manages to create humor and suspense out of urban desperation.
As the components of your life are stripped away, after all the ambitions and hopes vaporize, you reach a self-reflective starkness– the repetitious plucking of a single overwound string.
Nowadays the standards had plummeted so far that I failed even at being a failure. I silently packed up. Nothing else was left. They had even robbed me of self-pity
Perhaps the price of comfort is that life passes more rapidly. But for anyone who has lived in uneasiness, even for a short, memorable duration, it’s a trade-off that will gladly be made.
Stressful jobs, loveless marriages, bad food-most people kill themselves slowly every day.
I lay in bed and watched moments break into phenomenal particles of panic and could actually see the divine crack of God’s ass as he completely turned his back on me.
Finally life becomes a very specific thing–and that’s what we are. Ultimately, looking back, I’m beginning to believe that we need to always be fucked up. We need to always have some reason to hate ourselves, something to make us feel eternally incomplete.
The masses-I love em-they rush for red lights, risking everything to capture a few seconds, only to get home and waste their lives.