Julie Hecht

Now in paperback, the newest collection of stories from the acclaimed author of Do the Windows Open?, Was This Man a Genius?, and The Unprofessionals—a brilliant, complex work that delivers more of the exquisitely funny and beautifully observant prose that draws ardent praise from critics and readers. • An exceptional author: Julie Hecht’s fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and Harper’s, and her books have received spectacular reviews from The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Time, and many other publications. All of the author’s books have been named New York Times Notable Books. • A singular character: At her first appearance, Hecht’s anxious, beguiling, and anonymous photographer-narrator was an instant literary icon. Her strategies—macrobiotics, herbal remedies, a bit of Xanax—for surviving civilization’s decline have established her as one of the most enthusiastically read voices of the last decade. • Our postmodern world, re-examined: With an unwavering gaze on the absurdities and ironies of the larger world, Happy Trails to You recounts the narrator’s attempts to find a place of unspoiled nature on the once peaceful island of Nantucket, where power mowers, nail guns, and speeding trucks have blocked out the sounds of birdsong and crickets. A visit to a friend or restaurant touches upon every subject from the color of paint to the world situation and infinity.

There is no American writer alive who is funnier, more inquisitive, or more surprising than Julie Hecht. The Unprofessionals, her first novel, whose narrator also told the stories in the author's bestselling collection Do the Windows Open?, is a triumph of tragicomedy. The book follows the odd friendship between the narrator -- a photographer in her late forties -- and a precocious raconteur, identified only as The Boy, whom she has known since his childhood. As the narrator and the young man regale each other with tales of the way Americans live now, she is also telling the story of his path to heroin addiction and his many attempts to recover. The Unprofessionals is a masterpiece of comic despair, illuminating our bewildering century, and a hilarious and sad story of two outsiders who see the world with painful clarity -- and as a whole, a novel of unexampled originality.

Do the Windows Open? is a series of hilarious linked tales documenting the mania of the modern day in devastating detail-tales that have had readers of The New Yorker laughing out loud for years.The beguiling and alienated narrator-who finds nearly everything interesting and almost nothing clear-has set herself the never-ending goal of photographing a world-renowned reproductive surgeon, Walden Pond, the ponds of Nantucket, and all the houses Anne Sexton ever lived in. On the way, she searches for organically grown vegetables, windows that open, and an endodontist who acts like a normal person. She sometimes compares herself unfavorably to Jacqueline Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and Princess Diana.What emerges is a unique sensibility under siege. This is a remarkably original literary performance, one that speaks to anyone looking for the refuge laughter offers from life in an absurd world.