Ray of the Star - Tapa blanda

A tender love story related in the dark, stylish noir of continental cinema and overlaid with a patina of Surrealism, this is also a mediation about how we cope with unimaginable tragedy (like those of the main characters, one of whom lost their entire family and the other who lost a lover to unspeakable violence) and how we battle the demons that accompany it. The main character describes the buildings of this Barcelona-like, nameless city as "designed by the sort of visionary / crackpot who every generation or so arises in great metropolises and pulls fistfuls of the future out of his pockets and smears them all over the present." The same could be said of Laird Hunt, a visionary writer, whose work, like Antoni Gaudi's architecture, heralds the future. Laird Hunt has developed a tech-savvy cult following and is a favorite among literary bloggers. A reading from his debut novel was one of the first live, literary web casts, and the promotion for his previous book included an official filmed trailer (viewable at YouTube) and a video, shot by lit blogger Bud Parr (viewable at Chekov's Mistress). For this novel, the main characters will be on Twitter and we'll do some Facebook promotion. Theater students will also film reenactments from the novel for broadcast on YouTube.

Called "one of the most talented young writers on the American scene today" by Paul Auster, Laird Hunt is the author of three previous, genre-bending novels: The Impossibly, The Exquisite, and Indiana, Indiana. A former press officer at the United Nations and current faculty member at the University of Denver, he lives in Boulder, Colorado.