From a Pulitzer Prize finalist comes a hilarious and heartbreaking novel about a musician climbing back from rock bottom.

As winter deepens in snowbound Pollard, Illinois, thirty-something Francis Falbo is holed up in his attic apartment, recovering from a series of traumas: his mother's death, his beloved wife's desertion, and his once-ascendant rock band's irreconcilable break-up. Francis hasn't shaved in months, hasn't so much as changed out of his bathrobe-"the uniform of a Life in Default"-for nine days.

Other than the agoraphobia that continues to hold him hostage, all he has left is his childhood home, whose remaining rooms he rents to a cast of eccentric tenants, including a pair of former circus performers whose daughter has gone missing. The tight-knit community has already survived a blizzard, but there is more danger in store for the citizens of Pollard before summer arrives. Francis is himself caught up in these troubles as he becomes increasingly entangled in the affairs of others, with results that are by turns disastrous, hysterical, and ultimately healing.

Fusing consummate wit with the seriousness attending an adulthood gone awry, Rapp has written an uproarious and affecting novel about what we do and where we go when our lives have crumbled around us. Sharp-edged but tenderhearted, Know Your Beholder introduces us to one of the most lovably flawed characters in recent fiction, a man at last able to collect the jagged pieces of his dreams and begin anew, in both life and love. Seldom have our foibles and our efforts to persevere in spite of them been laid bare with such heart and hope.

Author: Adam Rapp
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Little Brown and Company
Published: 03/03/2015
Pages: 352
Weight: 1.2lbs
Size: 9.30h x 6.20w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9780316368919


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 09/15/2014 pg. 48
Kirkus Reviews 01/01/2015
Booklist 01/01/2015 pg. 38
Publishers Weekly 01/19/2015
Shelf Awareness 03/06/2015
Entertainment Weekly 03/20/2015 pg. 104
Library Journal 09/15/2014

About the Author
An acclaimed filmmaker and playwright, Adam Rapp was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his play Red Light Winter and is the recipient of the Benjamin H. Danks Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among other honors.

In addition to his numerous plays, he is the author of the novel The Year of Endless Sorrows and several YA novels, including Under the Wolf, Under the Dog, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in New York City.