Sign in
Read to Sleep
Books
Kids
Popular
Authors & Events
Gifts & Deals
Audio
Sign In
Feb 22, 2011 | ISBN 9780515149043 Buy *This format is not eligible to earn points towards the Reader Rewards program
Apr 01, 2010 | ISBN 9781101186152 Buy
Apr 01, 2010 | 671 Minutes Buy
Also available from:
Available from:
Feb 22, 2011 | ISBN 9780515149043
Apr 01, 2010 | ISBN 9781101186152
Apr 01, 2010 | ISBN 9781101154779
671 Minutes
Joseph Geist takes a job as a “conversationalist” for a wealthy, enigmatic woman who offers him a place to stay in her big, beautiful house. But as his friendship with his employer evolves from conversationalist to lodger to caretaker, Joseph finds himself at odds with the woman’s troubled nephew, and decides to do whatever is necessary to maintain his position.
A masterful, inventive thriller from a remarkably assured and always surprising young writer. Perpetual graduate student Joseph Geist is at his wit’s end. Recently kicked out of their shared apartment by his girlfriend, he’s left with little more than a half bust of Nietzsche’s head and the realization that he’s homeless and unemployed. He’s hit a dead end on his dissertation; his funding has been cut off. He doesn’t even have a phone. Desperate for some source of income, he searches the local newspaper and finds a curious ad: CONVERSATIONALIST SOUGHT. SERIOUS APPLICANTS ONLY. PLEASE CALL 617-XXX-XXXX BETWEEN SEVEN A.M. AND TWO P.M. NO SOLICITORS. And so Joseph meets Alma Spielman: a woman who, with her old-world ways and razor-sharp mind, is his intellectual soul mate. How is he to know that what seems to be the best decision of his life is the one that seals his fate?
Jesse Kellerman won the Princess Grace Award for best young American playwright and is the author of Sunstroke, Trouble, The Genius (for which he won the 2010 Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle), The Executor, and Potboiler (for which he… More about Jesse Kellerman
Visit other sites in the Penguin Random House Network
Stay in Touch
By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.