A paperback reissue of the critically acclaimed psychological drama from the author of the cult-classic The Fuck-Up (over 80,000 copies in print) and Manhattan Loverboy.

Click here to read an excerpt from Suicide Casanova.

Click here to see information about upcoming events for Arthur Nersesian

Click here for ordering information on first edition, out of print, autographed novels, plays, and poems by Arthur Nersesian.

And click here to see the original collector's item videocassete edition of Suicide Casanova.

What do Gary Condit, Woody Allen, and O.J. Simpson have in common with Leslie Cauldwell, protagonist of Nersesian's latest offering? They are Suicide Casanovas. What compels powerful men in the prime of their professional lives to risk so much? Following the commercial success of his first four novels (see bio below), Suicide Casanova presents a psychosexual thriller, a dramatic departure from his youthful black comedies: Humbert Humbert without the pedophile penchant, Hannibal Lechter without the appetitite.

Corporate attorney Leslie Cauldwell is middle-aged, handsome, and rich, but has only a few swipes left on his mental Metrocard. During a rough sex session, he garrotes his beloved wife; now he's an officially designated "sex offender," off on a bender, looking for love in all the wrong places. Twenty years earlier, when his office was high above the pornographic purgatory of Times Square, Leslie became involved with the adult-film star, Sky Pacifica. She needed a refuge, and he was ripe for the using. Following a brief fling, each went their own way. Two decades later, in 2001, Leslie is still working in Times Square--recently sanitized with its ESPN Zone and MTV window--and fraught with guilt about the "accident" with his wife.

Like Jay Gatsby pursuing an erotic American dream, Leslie, with the help of a private detective, hunts down Sky Pacifica, his latter-day Daisy. Across a landscape of S&M mistresses and porn producers, from L.A. of the '80s to New York of the new millennium, we see a modern-day tale of love and loss, innocence and corruption, crime and redemption.

Arthur Nersesian is the author of The Fuck-Up (Akashic, MTV Books/Simon & Schuster), Chinese Takeout (HarperCollins), Manhattan Loverboy (Akashic), dogrun (MTV Books/Simon & Schuster), and Unlubricated. The former managing editor of the Portable Lower East Side, he currently lives in New York City.

Praise for Suicide Casanova:

"The Suicide Casanova for our new millennium is Leslie Cauldwell, a mild-mannered lawyer, voyeuristic pervert, unwitting murderer, lyrical misogynist, craven sex addict, sweaty stalker, off-the-cuff philosopher--the wily, manic, mordantly self-loathing narrator of his own lifešs shipwreck on his obsession with a porn star­turned­Long Island soccer mom. Nersesian has written a scathingly original page-turner, hilarious, tragic, and shocking--this may be his most brilliant novel yet." --Kate Christensen, author of In the Drink

"A vivid, compelling psychothriller, Suicide Casanova confirms Nersesian's place as one of New York City's most important chroniclers. His unique psychological vision of the city rates with those of Paul Auster and Madison Smart Bell." --Blake Nelson, author of Girl and User