Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy

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Sewer, Gas and Electric: The Public Works Trilogy

by Matt Ruff (Goodreads Author)

3.94 of 5 stars 3.94 · rating details · 1,341 ratings · 116 reviews

Sewer, Gas & Electric is the exuberant follow-up to Matt Ruff's cult classic and critically acclaimed debut Fool on the Hill.
High above Manhattan android and human steelworkers are constructing a new Tower of Babel for billionaire Harry Gant, as a monument to humanity's power to dream. In the festering sewers below a darker game is afoot: a Wall Street takeover artist...more

Paperback, 464 pages

Published September 10th 2004 by Grove Press (first published 1994)

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Apr 03, 2009 Dan rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: nobody I like

Recommended to Dan by: igtrtsootbc

Shelves: novels, igtrtsootb

I had to stop. I'm sorry. I hate not finishing books but this one increasingly felt like a waste of my ever precious reading minutes.

Yeah, this book is crap.

This book was very bad. It is not genius, clever, or even that interesting. The characters are not developed in any real way and the premise and plot situations are sophomoric and trite. This reads like a college student who had just read some philosophy and other literature decided to write a novel based on what he'd just learned. Had Ruff...more

1 like · like · see review

Nov 13, 2012 agent zero rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: anglofoni

Dopo un inizio folgorante ho via via perso interesse per la trama e i vari personaggi del romanzo.
Quando può succedere di tutto, non dà alcuno stimolo attendere il momento in cui succederà.
Il punto è che credo di detestare questi novelli campioni della letteratura postmoderna o avant-pop o come diavolo piace loro definirsi.
Caro Matt Ruff, cos'è?, non ti sta bene scrivere fantascienza? Non ti basta, forse? Ti senti costretto dall'etichetta, non del tutto compreso nel genere, nevvero?
Eppure non ci...more

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Nov 07, 2008 Jillian rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Jillian by: Corprew

Shelves: sci-fi

This book is FanTasTic, and so fun to read. It combines mind-bending, wacky ideas with neat characters in the setting of New York City in 2023. There's some sci fi and some mystery and Lots of hilarity, I laughed out loud every 10 pages or so. Included in this book are environmental warnings, conspiracy theories, artificial intelligence, and some very interesting ideas about how Americans really feel about black people. All of this is wrapped up in a clever package that you should read.

5 likes · like · see review

Sep 11, 2008 E Lowe rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Aquarians

'Sewer, Gas and Electric' mixes ideology and fantasy in a funny, witty and inventive manner. The novel gives a creative and intelligent consequentialist interpretation of what the world could be like in 2023, while at the same time drawing in philosophical dialogues concerning morality, the environment and unrestrained liberal capitalism.

Would not recommend this book for someone who has difficulty keeping tack of many characters or following multiple plot lines.

May suggest reading Ayn Rand's '...more

2 likes · like · see review

Dec 01, 2010 oriana marked it as to-read

Shelves: to-read-soon

this is a note to myself, which please feel free to remind me of later when I forget again:

self, you always for some reason confuse this book with Stone Junction by Jim Dodge. I think they are the same slightly oversize, with similar lurid reds & purples? But otherwise I don't know why this happens. Hurry up and read this so that you will be able to separate them properly in your head. okay?

1 like · like · see review

Feb 26, 2011 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: If you've ever shrugged at Atlas Shrugged...

Recommended to Alan by: Sui generis

Sewer Gas and Electric is an utter failure as an sf novel—if science fiction must be defined as a serious attempt to predict the future, anyway. From the large-scale to the small, Sewer Gas and Electric's prognostications about the early 21st Century have almost uniformly failed to pan out. The Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts haven't merged into one urban exploration club; there are no high-speed trains criss-crossing the U.S.; nor are there twin towers still looming over southern Manhattan's Bat...more

3 likes · like · see review

Jan 23, 2011 Liz Michel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Flap:
The year is 2023. High above the canyons of Manhattan, a crew of human and android steelworkers is approaching the halfway point in the construction of a new Tower of Babel. The tower is the brainchild of billionaire Harry Gant, who is building it as a monument to humanity's power to dream. Meanwhile, on the streets (and below), a darker game is afoot: A Wall Street takeover artist has been murdered, and Harry's ex-wife, Joan Fine, has been hired to find out why. Accompanying her is philo...more

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May 13, 2009 Jasmine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american

The last sentences of this book in the acknowledgments are:
"Thanks also to the New York Times, newspaper of record, for confirming that even in a rational universe, 'far-fetched' is a relative term. In an article dated February 10, 1935, the Times recounts the story of a group of teenagers who found a seven-and-a-half-foot alligator in a Harlem sewer, dragged it up onto the street, and beat it to death with shovels. Public works officials have since denied the existence of any reptile larger tha...more

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May 19, 2008 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My favorite of Matt Ruff's books. Like some of his others, it's packed full of characters. This one is very fun, lots of satire and comedy.

It involves robot servants, a flying mutant shark named Meisterbrau, a crew of ecoterrorists who pilot the polka-dotted submarine "Yabba-Dabba-Doo," a hurricane lamp containing the AI representation of Ayn Rand, and a mystery involving a sentient computer which resides underneath Disneyland.

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Feb 17, 2012 Ron rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, poitical-thought, philosophy, science-fiction

Matt Ruff is quite a versatile author of fiction. His first book "The Fool On The Hill" was great fantasy fiction set at Cornell University. An underground, cult favorite. This book got a "heads up" from none other than Thomas Pynchon, darling of the literati. It takes real talent to philosophize in an action/adventure tale and not cause the reader to snooze off and put the book aside. Ruff accomplished that feat for me. Given the current popularity of Ayn Rand among the financial class, this is...more

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Jan 16, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, science-fiction, cyberpunk-post-cyberpunk-fiction

Matt Ruff has written three novels in a literary career spanning nearly two decades; all three are rooted somehow in fantasy and should be regarded as fine examples of speculative fiction. "Sewer, Gas Electric: The Public Works Trilogy" is a dazzling, hilarious cyberpunk adventure set in the New York City of 2023. Ruff conjurs up a bizarre, almost dystopian, view of a near-future New York City laced with the political wisdom of Ayn Rand, who returns, resurrected as a major protagonist in this no...more

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Dec 12, 2011 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is a well written and enjoyable novel which is let down by too much happening in it. That may sound strange but for me there are too many principle characters to keep track of and too many secondary characters who appear and sometimes exist for a chapter and sometime appear much later in the book. This can be confusing for a simple reader like me. Coupled with a plot which is great science fiction but tends towards the fantastical in some cases and some foreshadowing which can pause for 100...more

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Jun 28, 2011 Hirsuited rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Bored sewer rats/objectivist scum.

SG&E is breezy and fun, an action novel draped in all shades and shapes of non-sequitur absurdity, with a few murky passages of philosophical rumination (Ayn Rand, a miserable and depressing presence, even as a fiction trapped in a lamp in someone else's book). It doesn't rank with the Diskworld and Hitchhiker's Guide novels, but its almost as much fun to read.

1 like · like · see review

Apr 06, 2009 Joe rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was outstandingly fun to read. Come on, a robotic safety device in the form of a beaver with the voice of Ralph Nader; what's not to like here? An environmental activist group on a polka dotted submarine that throw giant whipped cream pies at whaling vessels. I really really enjoyed reading this book and recommend it for a light-hearted read for just about anybody; but especially for people saturated in pop culture and political news junkies.

However, I did have some problems with the r...more

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Jun 14, 2010 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Sarah by: Jillian

(Preliminary apologies: I kind of sped through this book, and I will kind of speed through this review- my apologies to the author and also the the lady who recommended it to me! It's not been much of a week for dawdling, which is too bad- I could use some dawdling (although, of course, the fact that I dawdle so much is precisely what makes this a non-dawdle-able week, so perhaps I really could not use that dawdling)- and of course quality suffers where quantity prevails, but I want to add this...more (Preliminary apologies: I kind of sped through this book, and I will kind of speed through this review- my apologies to the author and also the the lady who recommended it to me! It's not been much of a week for dawdling, which is too bad- I could use some dawdling (although, of course, the fact that I dawdle so much is precisely what makes this a non-dawdle-able week, so perhaps I really could not use that dawdling)- and of course quality suffers where quantity prevails, but I want to add this review to my done list before I forget everything about this novel!).

Ok! So! This novel was recommended to me by a friend of a friend in the course of a conversation which was leading me towards an implicit trust of her literary opinion (under the principal that interesting people are, generally, interested in interesting things). I'm grateful for that- because honestly, had I passed by this novel on the library shelf, I would have just kept on going. Neither the title nor the cover recommend itself to me: as a city worker, I'm sort of blase about utilities as a topic, and as a reader, I'm kind of turned off by surrealistic book covers, which this one, or at least the version I'm reading, has (you can't really tell by the icon, but that blue thing at the bottom left is a shark. A shark. Sort of swim-floating in a crimson sky alongside several columns. I'm not saying it's an invalid art form, surrealism, it's just thoroughly not my cup of tea). And while I know the old adage, I'll admit, I am definitely a judger of books by their covers.

So don't make my mistake, is my point.

This novel is set in the year 2023 as imagined by the author in 1999 (in Boston, at the time). Like David Foster Wallace, Matt Puff envisions a future where consumerism has fully pervaded every element of human experience (essentially, a hyper-concentrated version of now), and like David Foster Wallace, he uses absurdity to explore class and consumerism (this particular book even comes, at the very beginning, with a social register, handily denoting the characters as the Rich, the various degrees of Middle Class, and the various degrees of poor). Unlike David Foster Wallace, who seems to imply that consumption has more or less drained the world of its inate grace and vitality, Matt Ruff seems to focus on the absurd, irrational, subversive inclination of humans to- well, to be fully human, in all of our joy and our piques and our passions and our gritty determinism. This is a novel with a lot of dead people in it (several million, possibly billion), and some extremely troubling racial undertones (the novel hinges on a mysterious plague that *only* kills people of African descent), and some very ambiguous judgment calls- yet which still manages to make you feel generally optimistic and hopeful about our future.

Mostly, I think, this is achieved by the creation of some extremely likeable characters. I felt, as I read this novel, split between focusing on the the incredulous but entertaining romp (the novel's cover does not lie- sharks feature in this, as well as submarines, pirates, androids (both evil and benign), AI, industrial espionage), the utterly bizarre (I was promised this would feature Ayn Rand reincarnated in a lamp- and I'm not going to lie to you, this novel, dedicated to Ms. Rand, gave me a strange sense of the warm fuzzies for her!), and the incredibly likeable and warm characters. These characters are not perfect, but of course that is a huge reason why they are likeable (Ayn Rand, take note!)- in spite of their many imperfections and contradictions, they are characters who you can imagine just really having some fine moments of deep enjoyment in the world, and in their love for each other. (Also, this featured a fleeting, but to my mind, very very touching, depiction of polyandry, which I think is a hard act to pull, so well done with that, Mr. Ruff!)

As a person who loves conspiracy theories with the skeptical loyalty (comparable to the love a lapsed Catholic has for the Church, I think), this novel handily indulges in all manners of fantastical world weaving, implicating beloved and not so beloved cultural and political figures; I wouldn't say this novel brilliantly reveals anything that the average American adult hasn't already considered about the dangers of technology, the role of capitalism, or the relatively futility of activism, but that's a minor quibble.

I will say that as a white American, this novels treatment of race made me deeply deeply uncomfortable. I can't say whether this is the author's intention, or if this is a criticism of the author- I kind of feel I need to take the tack of familiarizing myself with Mr. Ruff's work before I know for sure. But I do offer that as a head's up- pretty much my soul reservation about this novel is that I am not sure if his treatment of a plague that wipes out an entire race of people is flippant or brutally satirical- I lean towards the latter, but I'm just not sure.

All in all, a book I highly recommend you read. And then talk to me about it when you do.

(less)

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May 25, 2012 Kurt rated it 5 of 5 stars

This has the lunacy of Roald Dahl, the social commentary of Douglas Adams, and the tongue-in-cheek liberal guilt of a collection of Stuff White People Like blog entries, along with scholarly Bible references, lovingly Asimov-derivative sci-fi, and Ayn Rand rejecting the premise of a knock-knock joke. This is my third Matt Ruff novel, and I love it like I have loved his other work.

This is a story set in the distant future of the 21st century (it's not quite post-apocalyptic, more like mid-apocal...more This has the lunacy of Roald Dahl, the social commentary of Douglas Adams, and the tongue-in-cheek liberal guilt of a collection of Stuff White People Like blog entries, along with scholarly Bible references, lovingly Asimov-derivative sci-fi, and Ayn Rand rejecting the premise of a knock-knock joke. This is my third Matt Ruff novel, and I love it like I have loved his other work.

This is a story set in the distant future of the 21st century (it's not quite post-apocalyptic, more like mid-apocalyptic), as envisioned in the early 1990s, so there are many explorations of the environmental issues that were in vogue at the time, and examinations of the political correctness trends of the time, all done with compassionate satire. A corporation has perfected the domestic android, and while they originally produced models in every variety of shape and skin pigmentation, it turned out that when consumers purchased human-shaped helpers, certain racial characteristics were wildly more popular, and the main characters (mostly corporate employees or former employees) have various amounts of white liberal guilt for this unforeseen consequence. After a few chapters, Ruff gets the plot moving when some of the main characters investigate a situation in which one of the androids may have violated its programming by beating a corporate raider to death with a copy of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Hence the lunacy.

Ruff tells a story that is funny and exciting, drawing in delicate subjects like race, sexuality, and religion by treating them with respectful humor. He lets the book drag here and there as his characters drift into Platonic dialogues with a hologram of Ayn Rand, but never for too long. Even though the most prevalent tone is a humorous one, of course, Ruff also gets to show off his talents for writing tense chase scenes and action sequences (never with quite the bone-chilling menace of the unforgettable Rubbermaid scenes in Fool on the Hill: A Novel, but close enough), so thriller fans will likely be satisfied by this novel.

Sewer, Gas, and Electric is simply a treasure of a book, a joy to read and to ponder, and I highly recommend it.(less)

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Nov 01, 2009 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

If Douglas Adams and Christopher Moore had a literary love-child, the result might be Matt Ruff. This was an absurd, utterly bizarre, politically incorrect, and highly entertaining novel. At the end of the day, it's a sci-fi artificial-intelligence-wants-to-rid-the-world-of-humanity kind of story. But when the tale involves an Eco-Terrorist pirate, a bloodthirsty Elizabeth II who refuses to unclench her grip on the throne, and a line of "Electric Negroes", it can't be beat. This was really a gre...more

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Jul 07, 2009 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi

WTF.

That's pretty much the only way to describe this book. I loved it, I don't really remember the entire plot even though I've read it at least 4 times, and I'm pretty sure the plot made sense when I read it. What sticks with me are the vivid images in my head of certain scenes and moments in the book, permanently rendered there by the clever phrasing of the text.

I highly recommend this book. I wish I could coherently tell you why, but you can't always get what you want.

But if you try sometimes...more

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Mar 01, 2009 Maerdi rated it 4 of 5 stars

S, G & E reminds me of a funny, lighthearted action flick that's been fleshed out with interesting characters, a full world history, a believable backstory for the characters, and all the scenes that are important to the narrative but end up getting cut out of the film.

An extra nod for the humorous Ayn Rand references, I was thinking about giving this one 5 stars, but it just isn't my preferred genre. In addition, while I liked the storytelling technique, I found that between the scene jumps...more

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May 18, 2012 Shoshana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, before-i-got-goodreads, crossover, science-fiction, transcends

Just re-read this, as it's my book club pick this month. I love it as much as always. I happen to think that Matt Ruff has a fine command of excessive plot threads, a knack for fun characters (and Joan is so so great), a penchant for exhilarating action, and a delightful sense of the absurd.

He has also gotten better at women in this one (compared to my old favorite Fool on the Hill). Instead of a fairy whose battle scene we don't see, a cop who gets knocked out before she can help (although Nat...more Just re-read this, as it's my book club pick this month. I love it as much as always. I happen to think that Matt Ruff has a fine command of excessive plot threads, a knack for fun characters (and Joan is so so great), a penchant for exhilarating action, and a delightful sense of the absurd.

He has also gotten better at women in this one (compared to my old favorite Fool on the Hill). Instead of a fairy whose battle scene we don't see, a cop who gets knocked out before she can help (although Nattie Hollister is in fact my favorite character in FotH), and a love interest who sleeps through the climax, we have Kite, the 187 year old one-armed Civil War vet; Vanna, the comptroller with the complicated background and motivations; Seraphina, master of subterfuge and yet kind of dumb; Lexa Thatcher, journalist and polyandrist; Ayn Rand herself (sort of) at her obnoxious and yet strangely likable best; a host of miscellaneous female bit parts; and of course my easy favorite, Joan Fine: complicated, likable, crabby, heroic, and all-around way more interesting than any of the other (male or female) characters in this novel (or, in fact, most novels). So props to him there.

I don't quite have a handle on/a fully formed opinion about how Matt Ruff deals with race (also politics - mainly in that I think some of the ways he pokes fun at liberals are off base. Not because I don't have a sense of humor about my politics - I do - but because I think he's poking fun at what is essentially a conservative strawman of what liberals actually are/do/think. For one thing, I've never met liberals so terrible at explaining the dynamics of oppression. Make fun of the infighting, sure, but for goodness' sake don't go after us for censorship; we've done very little to earn it. But I forgive him because it's a blip in a book that is actually pretty environmental and social justice-y). Sometimes I start to get mad at him or frustrated or think I should be able to pinpoint something problematic about what he's doing, but then I end up feeling that it's justified/handled relatively well. Of course, I'm white and so is he, so my view is necessarily limited, which makes me wary, and he definitely has plot devices (and ways of describing characters) that could be racist or even offensive and/or hurtful - I just flat out can't tell. I can tell that he's not trying to be - and in fact, he does some pretty daring things with his plot, and it's clearly toying with/commenting on American racism (and not in a didactic way), which I appreciate. It certainly hasn't halted my enjoyment of the book - but again, I'm white, so it wouldn't, necessarily. I'll have to listen carefully to the opinions of others on this one.

There is so much going on in this book that even though this was the fourth time I'd read it, there was still stuff I didn't remember and/or couldn't predict, or that I hadn't caught the first three times. Which was awesome. (It helps that I have a poor memory for plot details in both books and movies.)

I do wish we had had just a hint more Joan at the end - a loose manhole cover or something equally missable but promising. I mean, maybe it was the person in green and white (who reminded Harry of her), but I want just a touch more, just to sell it a little. Subtle but more definite.

Oh, well. Minor complaints, and substantial political and theme questions that could turn into more major complaints, but this book is still in my top 15.(less)

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Dec 28, 2011 Tim rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the only book I had to buy three times in the last 12 years, because I love it so much it basically disintegrates after a while from all the reading, giving it to other people to read and taking it with me on a lot of trips and journeys.

It's basically become my safety blanket. If I don't feel well or need something to brighten my day I gravitate towards the familiar characters, bizarre settings and, of course, lovely philosophical discussions with Ayn Rand.

Lovely, weird, bizarre, touchin...more

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Feb 09, 2012 Raven rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the third book by Matt Ruff I've read, and he doesn't fail to disappoint when it comes to twists, turns, and overall wackiness of premise. The first 50-or-so pages (don't quote me on that, the big font on my iPad distorts to pg. count) introduced a plethora of characters, making it a bit difficult to keep track of all the going's on in the story. However, the converging characters tied into the story nicely towards the end of the Sewer section, and the mystery aspect of the plot really k...more

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Jan 05, 2009 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Matt Ruff has created a novel entirely intent on pulling the crazed insanity from within each of us. There is nothing normal about this novel; it will leave you in hysterics if you allow it and it will definitely leave you wondering how you managed to pack so much wonderful nonsense into your mind. Each page brings new characters and plots which lead you to the cliff of disbelief and leave you there to teeter over the edge and debate whether it can possibly get any more absurd. Well, yes it can.

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Jul 22, 2008 Alan rated it 4 of 5 stars

If really mind-bending science fiction is the main course then this would be dessert. It's a meta-science-fiction mash-up which wins your heart with its witty, if unlikely plotline and hilarous characters. A Gibson-esque omniscient supercomputer owned by a megacorporation wreaks havok on the world. Only this time. . .it's the Disney corporation, and the computer is trying to force the world to obey cartoon logic - obeying misheard dinner orders from it's creator as final commands. The protagonis...more

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Nov 13, 2007 Karschtl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: strange-weird, funny, drama, bc, 5-stars, read-in-2004

New York im Jahre 2023. Philo Dufresne, ein Schwarzer mit grünen Augen (und gerade diese Augenfarbe rettete ihn vor der Ausrottung 2004), kämpft mit seinem U-Boot als Ökopirat gegen Harry Gant. Dieser wiederum ist wie in kleiner Junge, der immer höher hinaus will. Sein Ziel: einen Turm namens Babel zu bauen. Harry's Exfrau wiederum kämpft zuerst in der Kanalisation gegen einen mutierten Hai und geht danach der Frage nach, ob es vielleicht ein Roboter war, der Amberson Teaneck - einen Typ der Fir...more

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Nov 07, 2012 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars

this book was a lot of fun. it combined a unique perspective on the near-future with vonnegut-esque social commentary and action and humor reminiscent of a tom Robbins or Christopher moore caper. maybe not as masterfully written as these authors, but satisfying nonetheless. the ayn rand character is brilliant, i see why it pisses off her fans, but it makes a strong point about how absurdly reductionistic and amoral objectivism actually is. am looking forward to exploring other works by this auth...more

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Aug 06, 2011 M rated it 4 of 5 stars

A truly masterful mash-up of characters, settings, and motivations. In a future Manhatten, various threads of stories collide at the massive Tower being built by billionarie Harry Grant. From a resurrected Ayn Rand and a submarine captain/ecoterrorist named Philo Dufrense, to a Walt Disney conspiracy to the massive mutant shark called Meisterbrau, anything can and does happen in Ruff's whirlwind tale. A lengthy read, but worth it just for the one-armed Civial war veteren and the Inuit harpoonist...more

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Sep 11, 2008 Vanessa rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: non-Objectivists

Recommended to Vanessa by: Monica

I had a hard time deciding how many stars to give this book. Overall, I thought the book was kind of stupid and ridiculous, but eventually it charmed me, and I ultimately ended up liking it. Everything about the story is overly complicated—plot, characters, and definitely the jokes. I think the best analogy I can come up with for this book is that it's like one really long, goofy joke that the person telling it thinks is really funny and they're so enthusiastic that you end up laughing (or at le...more

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Oct 01, 2007 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is now the second book by Matt Ruff I've read. He has a gift for madcap chaos and incorporating literary and historical references in a way that is more amusing than exclusive. Sewer, Gas and Electric is a crazy ride through an imagined future where mutant sharks roam the sewers of New York City, an enthusiastic industrialist is building a new Tower of Babel, Ayn Rand is resurrected in a hurricane lamp, and all the dirty work is done by androids known as Electric Negroes.

Ruff touches on ra...more

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Jan 05, 2012 Tracey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: libraryread-tcpl

Think Vonnegut meets Stephenson.... not sure either of them would have tackled making Ayn Rand an AI Jiminy Cricket (or sent J. Edgar Hoover to Club 33) - but I'm glad Matt Ruff did.

VERY quirky with a ton of characters (I should have taken notes); the twisty-turny plot made for an entertaining, if occasionally confusing read.

I may check out Ruff's other works at some point, after I've let this settle for a bit.

Quotes

Let women become soldiers or politicians or diplomats - and you haven't change...more

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About Matt Ruff

I was born in New York City in 1965. I decided I wanted to be a fiction writer when I was five years old and spent my childhood and adolescence learning how to tell stories. At Cornell University I wrote what would become my first published novel, Fool on the Hill, as my senior thesis in Honors English. My professor Alison Lurie helped me find an agent, and within six months of my college graduati...more

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