I'm Trying to Reach You

Book excerpt: * The Believer Book Award Finalist * One of the Best Books of 2012 —BuzzFeed “I was in Zagreb the day that Michael Jackson died. When I heard the news, the first thing I thought was, That’s it. That’s the first line of my novel. ‘I was in Zagreb the day that Michael Jackson died.’” First Michael Jackson, then Pina Bausch. Next is Merce Cunningham. Gray Adams, a former dancer with the Royal Swiss Ballet at work on his dissertation at NYU, has a theory spurred by countless hours of YouTube-based procrastination: Someone is killing these famous dancers! (And he may bear an uncanny resemblance to Jimmy Stewart, circa Vertigo.) I’m Trying to Reach You is a moving and candid contemporary look at how we process grief, as well as how we love and communicate with one another. "A provocative novel... that blurs the boundaries between life and performance, dance, art, and viral video. The novel is also framed in the world of performance art and is itself its own kind of performance... and feels rightly reflective of a moment when dance is pushing the boundaries of what constitutes a performance space." —Slate