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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
| Original language | |
| English | |
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SWEETNESS #9
Or: The Decline and Fall of David Leveraux
This is a darkly comic debut novel about a flavorist-in-training who keeps a secret that threatens his family and his life.
SWEETNESS #9: It's 1972, and David Leveraux is a flavorist-in-training prodigy with a bright future. He gets his first job in the artificial flavorings industry, testing a new miracle chemical called Sweetness #9. When David voices concerns that Sweetness #9 is causing unsettling side-effects in their lab rats and monkeys--anxiety, depression, obesity, and a general dissatisfaction with life--he's ignored. David quits and never tells anyone what he saw.
Twenty years later, Sweetness #9 is everywhere, and David's family is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. His wife is rapidly gaining weight, his daughter is anxious and depressed, and his son never uses verbs when he speaks. Is Sweetness #9 to blame, along with David's failure to stop it? Or are they all just suffering from the human condition?
The secrets and ethics of the food industry have been the focus many best-selling non-fiction books. SWEETNESS # 9 is the first novel to explore our anxieties and concerns about what we eat from a fresh angle, and is sure to generate conversation and elicit attention.
Stephan Eirik Clark is young and charming and spent his babyhood through grade school years living in England (mom is Norwegian, hence the Eirik, and Dad’s a Texan). He moved to the US when he was ten and still strongly identifies with the UK which influenced the background of his main character. Clark is the author of the short story collection Vladimir's Mustache, which was praised by such literary heavyweights as T. C. Boyle, Ben Fountain, Ken Kalfus, and Karl Iagnemma. A former Fulbright Fellow to Ukraine, he teaches English at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. This is his first novel.
STEPHAN EIRIK CLARK's short stories and essays have appeared in more than twenty literary magazines, including Ninth Letter, Witness, The Cincinnati Review, and LA Weekly, and been short-listed for the Fish Publishing Historical Fiction Prize and recognized in Best American Essays 2009 and 2010. Born in Germany and raised between England and the United States, Clark holds a Master's degree in English Literature with a creative writing emphasis from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He teaches creative writing at Augsburg College.
Twenty years later, Sweetness #9 is everywhere, and David's family is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. His wife is rapidly gaining weight, his daughter is anxious and depressed, and his son never uses verbs when he speaks. Is Sweetness #9 to blame, along with David's failure to stop it? Or are they all just suffering from the human condition?
The secrets and ethics of the food industry have been the focus many best-selling non-fiction books. SWEETNESS # 9 is the first novel to explore our anxieties and concerns about what we eat from a fresh angle, and is sure to generate conversation and elicit attention.
Stephan Eirik Clark is young and charming and spent his babyhood through grade school years living in England (mom is Norwegian, hence the Eirik, and Dad’s a Texan). He moved to the US when he was ten and still strongly identifies with the UK which influenced the background of his main character. Clark is the author of the short story collection Vladimir's Mustache, which was praised by such literary heavyweights as T. C. Boyle, Ben Fountain, Ken Kalfus, and Karl Iagnemma. A former Fulbright Fellow to Ukraine, he teaches English at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. This is his first novel.
STEPHAN EIRIK CLARK's short stories and essays have appeared in more than twenty literary magazines, including Ninth Letter, Witness, The Cincinnati Review, and LA Weekly, and been short-listed for the Fish Publishing Historical Fiction Prize and recognized in Best American Essays 2009 and 2010. Born in Germany and raised between England and the United States, Clark holds a Master's degree in English Literature with a creative writing emphasis from the University of California, Davis and a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He teaches creative writing at Augsburg College.
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Book
Published 2014-08-01 by Little Brown |
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Book
Published 2014-08-01 by Little Brown |