“Save me, Stranger is a book of parables -- supernal and sinister. Disturbing but comforting. Read these stories with a buddy, because someone will have to scrape you off the floor.”
—Louise Erdrich, author of The Sentence and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award
“In this far-ranging and visionary collection, Krouse extends the reach of what stories can do, delivering a dozen little masterpieces of heart and longing and surprise. Save Me, Stranger is at once a treatise on tender moments and a symphony of storytelling.”
—Adam Johnson, author of Fortune Smiles and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the Story Prize
“I really enjoyed this book. There are always questions about the advantages and disadvantages of first person narrators, but here the women who speak seem, paradoxically, so matter of fact and forceful that it’s difficult to believe anyone could tell their stories better. Some of their remarkable power is that the stories alternate between embodying epiphanies and valedictions – sometimes a quick goodbye, but always with an authenticity that convinces the longer it lingers. They’ll stay in your mind.”
—Ann Beattie, author of Onlookers and PEN/Malamud Award winner
“It is always a thrill to encounter a new and wildly capable imagination— each story here is full-realized and also a portal into a new landscape, and I read with appetite, marveling at Krouse’s range and storytelling chops.”
—Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade and winner of the Alex Award
“The protagonists at the heart of this collection seem to hang, fingers clinging, on a high precipice, while the reader stands above in judgment and care, both at once. These characters, most of whom we meet in the wake of some serious existential disaster, do not always behave, or view the world, honorably — of course they don’t, given where they’ve come from. And yet, as we read their stories, it becomes clear that redemption might yet be in reach, if only someone would reach down and offer a hand. In our lonesome, suspicious times, Save Me, Stranger made me feel that there’s hope yet for our wretched souls. I’ll be thinking about these stories for a long time.”
—Vauhini Vara, author of This is Salvaged and Pulitzer Prize finalist
✶“A smart set of globetrotting, emotionally gripping stories. Krouse’s second story collection is thick with restlessness, both across the book and within each story. Krouse is gifted at capturing her characters’ dueling frustrations, needs, and fears."
—Kirkus starred review
✶....Fierce and unforgettable…These no-holds-barred stories often feature young women in trouble...While danger lurks around the corner for all of Krouse's characters, sometimes compassion saves the day.”
—Booklist starred review
“Affecting...[Krouse] makes the thrill of new beginnings palpable."
—Publishers Weekly
Jacket copy: Erika Krouse's debut memoir, Tell Me Everything, was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as “lyrical, jarring, propulsive,” and the Washington Post as “mesmerizing on every page.” Now, with an electrifying new collection of stories, Save Me, Stranger, she further cements her reputation as an essential voice.
From the coldest town on earth to a sex shop in Bangkok to a haunted bed-and-breakfast in the Rockies, we meet characters at hinge moments. A runaway fights for her future while driving an ice-cream truck in gang territory; a cleaning woman investigates the teenager who died in her stead; a terminal patient in Alaska discovers new life in helping others die. This collection explores the borderlands between humor and hurt, community and self, and hope and despair, redefining what it means to survive.
Scalpel-sharp, unsparingly funny, and achingly wise, Krouse's expansive stories build to unforgettable emotional catharses, as these men and women must decide how far they are willing to go to save one another―and themselves.
Tell Me Everything:
The Story of a Private Investigation
Winner of the 2023 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime,
Colorado Book Award for Creative Nonfiction, Housatonic Book Award for Nonfiction, Book of the Month Club, New York Times Editors’ Choice, People Magazine People Pick, BookPage Best Nonfiction of 2022, Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction of 2022, Slate 10 Best Books of 2022 (Laura Miller), Jezebel 10 Best Books of 2022
“This is literary nonfiction at a high level.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Mesmerizing on every page.”
—The Washington Post
March 2022, Flatiron Books
Part memoir and part literary true crime, Tell Me Everything is the mesmerizing story of a landmark sexual assault investigation and the female private investigator who helped crack it open.
“The best story I’ve read in a long, long time.”
—Lacy Crawford, author of Notes on a Silencing
“Tell Me Everything is our new standard.”
—Charles D’Ambrosio, author of Loitering
“Propulsive as anything by Raymond Chandler but with twice the emotional IQ.”
—Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood
“Tell Me Everything affected me more than any memoir I’ve read in the last decade.”
—Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year
“Erika Krouse achieves a singular accomplishment of voice in her stunning memoir.”
—Michelle Bowdler, author of Is Rape a Crime?
“Gripping and moving, both excavation and investigation.”
—Caitlin Horrocks, author of Life Among the Terranauts
“Masterful…Extraordinary…it’s Krouse’s own persona, with her supernatural powers, her supersize wounds, and her spiritual speedball of courage and vulnerability, that makes this book mesmerizing on every page.”
—The Washington Post, Marion Winik
“This lyrical, jarring, propulsive memoir of Krouse’s time as a private investigator is literary nonfiction at a high level — the author manages the tricky high-wire act of balancing the story of a case with a more personal dive into her past.”
—The New York Times Book Review
✶“A stunning story of redemption and hope. Readers will be gripped.”
—Publishers Weekly starred review
✶“An exceptionally well-told, perceptive examination of a sexual abuse scandal and its personal and social relevance.”
—Kirkus starred review
✶“Readers will devour this searingly intimate tale of institutional misogyny.”
—Library Journal starred review
✶“Erika Krouse’s memorable, highly personal account of a landmark Title IX case reads like a compelling detective novel.”
—BookPage starred review
“Tell Me Everything isn’t a testimony of suffering. It’s the evidence of what Krouse has made from it: an artist, and a formidable one.”
—Laura Miller, Slate
“A triumph of literary reportage and memoir.”
—Sarah Weinman, Air Mail
Contenders
An "Outstanding Mixed-Martial-Arts-Female-Comedy-Philosophy Novel."
Finalist for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award
Published by Rare Bird Books, ISBN-13: 978-1940207636
Street-fighter Nina Black lives by her fists in Denver, stealing wallets and taking advantage of men who try to take advantage of her. This symbiosis is upended when one of her marks, a cop and MMA comeback contender, wants his wallet—and his dignity—back.
“I couldn't stop turning these brilliant pages."
—Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy
“This book is like watching Lorrie Moore's humor in a glorious street brawl with Ernest Hemingway's bullfighters."
—Nick Arvin, author of The Reconstructionist and Articles of War
“By turns hilarious, exciting, tough as rusty nails, and blazingly heartfelt, it's a knockout on every level."
—David Wroblewski, author of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle
“Contenders may well be the best woman warrior novel ever written.”
—Baine Kerr, author of Wrongful Death
Come Up and See Me Sometime
(short story collection)
Winner of the Paterson Prize
A New York Times Notable Book
Starred Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews
Translated into six languages
Published by Scribner, ISBN-13: 978-1501142727
With Mae West as an ingenious guiding spirit, Erika Krouse introduces us to thirteen young, single, geographically and emotionally nomadic women looking for self-knowledge and trouble.
“Krouse leaves us with a feeling of unbounded, exhilarating possibility.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Krouse is the master of one-liners, pulling the tablecloth from under painful situations, while skillfully leaving the table intact.”
—Denver Rocky Mountain News
"I gobbled up this book in one sitting - it was like eating a whole chocolate cake.”—Anna Maxted, author of Running in Heels
“The compressed intensity explodes on impact.”
—Emily Wortis Leider, author of Becoming Mae West
“Erika Krouse makes an intelligent, dreamily off-kilter debut.”
—Jennifer Egan, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad
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