Daniel Hayes

Writers familiar with the slow burn caused by repeated rejection will be delighted with this new novel, centering on just that. Evan Ulmer, one of many writers whose creative efforts go unappreciated, reaches his breaking point and takes matters into his own hands. After kidnapping an accomplished book editor and setting him up in a basement cage equipped with a porta-john, Ulmer muses, “Was abduction a difficult and gutsy endeavor or, instead, the predictable last resort of the desperately stupid?” From there, a peculiar relationship develops between captive and captor, as both watch the media spin the situation for its own ends. Hayes, whose dark humor is drawn with taught, no-nonsense prose, has a sly way of riffing on multiple literary
genres. Available October 1