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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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THE DISTRACTIONS
A Novel
Solitary tech worker Mischa Osborn is mourning the shelving of her passion project -an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of love- when a chance encounter with a social media celebrity leads her spiraling into an all-consuming obsession. Simultaneously, someone or something is watching.
Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher -keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory.
Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection.
Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic onReel. As Mischa's ReelWatching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even realspace stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control.
Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices.
A tale of how technology enables obsession, envy, and unrelenting comparison, told through an eccentric cast of interconnected characters, The Distractions invites us to reflect on who we are watching, and why.
After getting her start in the storied William Morris Agency mailroom, Liza left the business side of creativity to pursue her calling as a writer. Her books include the memoir The Marriage Act: The Risk I Took To Keep My Best Friend In America And What It Taught Us About Love (Counterpoint/Soft Skull 2014), the debut novel Mexican High (Spiegel & Grau/Random House 2008), and Seeing As Your Shoes Are Soon To Be On Fire (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press 2016), a collection of personal essays based on one of the "most popular, provocative, and unforgettable" columns for The New York Times' "Modern Love" column and a voicemail from an ex. Another of her "Modern Love" installments was selected and read by Malin Ackerman for the series' podcast. Her Longreads essay "Soli/dairy/ty" was selected for The Best American Food Writing 2021. Liza's work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, O, Marie Claire, Longreads, and many other publications and anthologies, including The New York Times' Best of Modern Love, Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, O's Little Book of Calm and Comfort, and Wedding Cake for Breakfast. She was the inaugural John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence at the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio and has been awarded residencies at the Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando and Kimmel Nelson Harding Center. She earned an MFA from Columbia University in 2010 and lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection.
Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic onReel. As Mischa's ReelWatching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even realspace stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control.
Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices.
A tale of how technology enables obsession, envy, and unrelenting comparison, told through an eccentric cast of interconnected characters, The Distractions invites us to reflect on who we are watching, and why.
After getting her start in the storied William Morris Agency mailroom, Liza left the business side of creativity to pursue her calling as a writer. Her books include the memoir The Marriage Act: The Risk I Took To Keep My Best Friend In America And What It Taught Us About Love (Counterpoint/Soft Skull 2014), the debut novel Mexican High (Spiegel & Grau/Random House 2008), and Seeing As Your Shoes Are Soon To Be On Fire (Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press 2016), a collection of personal essays based on one of the "most popular, provocative, and unforgettable" columns for The New York Times' "Modern Love" column and a voicemail from an ex. Another of her "Modern Love" installments was selected and read by Malin Ackerman for the series' podcast. Her Longreads essay "Soli/dairy/ty" was selected for The Best American Food Writing 2021. Liza's work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, O, Marie Claire, Longreads, and many other publications and anthologies, including The New York Times' Best of Modern Love, Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, O's Little Book of Calm and Comfort, and Wedding Cake for Breakfast. She was the inaugural John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence at the Thurber House in Columbus, Ohio and has been awarded residencies at the Jack Kerouac Project of Orlando and Kimmel Nelson Harding Center. She earned an MFA from Columbia University in 2010 and lives in Santa Cruz, CA.
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Book
Published 2025-01-14 by Regalo Press |