52 Men

Elise goes from one romantic and sexual encounter to the next: ranging from funny, wry, sexy, sad, sordid, and heartbreaking, from unlikely interludes with men of both great power and none to relationships that are sometimes full of wild promise and other times shocking and raw. As we read 52 of them, each described in intense spare and at times crushing literary miniatures of less than two pages, the reader is forced to ask why does she stay in some? Why does she leave others? Why does she ignore some of the best men, and give herself to some of the worst? What is the secret of women's desire, and what is Elise's secret?

In 52 Men, the reader is a witness to Elise as she undergoes a slow-burn awakening, her choices a reflection of one woman's battle and journey from sex to love to meaning. Her egalitarian approach to the world, her naivety and openness, lead her into a sexual life full of opportunities and meetings with both emptiness, love, danger, and fame. With cameos by figures from tabloids and the news: Jay Carney, Jonathan Franzen, Lou Reed, Michael Stipe, and encounters with artists, bankers, a police officer, a jousting waiter and a boxer who eads Neruda at the Turkish baths.

Since You Ask (Akashic Books, 2004) won the James Jones Literary Society ward for Best First Novel in Progress. In New Zealand it was the top pick of the year by both 30-book writer ame Fiona Kidman and Cultural Editor of the New Zealand Listener, Guy Somerset. Her second novel was a estseller in New Zealand where it received rave reviews and exposure, as well as nomination for the Prize in odern Letters.

Louise grew up in Manhattan, attended Columbia, and has also published in Poetry, Gargoyle, Hotel Amerika, Quarter After Eight, and other journals. She has written for TIME and YACHTING and more recently worked in a theological seminary, an arts colony, and outback aboriginal Australia.