A dead body floating by a pier. An elderly woman curled up on a bed in a department store. A psychiatrist searching for her own identity. These are the pieces of the puzzle that, in John Sedgwick's masterful novel of psychological suspense, begin to come into focus when Madeline Bemis is referred to the treatment of Dr. Alice Matthews at Montrose Psychiatric Hospital. Mrs. Bemis's treatment gradually peels back the layers of a disturbing past whose shameful secrets and hidden sorrows stem from the war years of the 1940s—and reveals an unexpected link to the floating corpse. Mrs. Bemis's awakening sparks an intimacy between the two women that goes beyond an ordinary doctor/patient relationship—but also makes it clear that Mrs. Bemis's recovery, and perhaps even her safety, depends on quickly coming to terms with her secret history.

Nonfiction is the new black comedy in this hilarious collection of award-winning literary essays written by the infamous Pagan Kennedy. In the title piece, Alex Comfort, author of The Joy of Sex, reinvents himself as a sex guru in California and hatches a plan to destroy monogamy forever. In the stories that follow, a retired chemist finds a way to turn a wasteland into paradise, an aspiring tyrant tries to become the emperor of America, and an artist rigs himself up to a "brain machine" made from parts he bought at Radio Shack. All of the essays—most of which have appeared in The New York Times Magazine and The Boston Globe Magazine—document the stories of visionaries bent on remaking the world, for better or for worse.

One of the nation's top divorce lawyers opens his case files to share true stories that rival the most outrageous fiction Gerald Nissenbaum knows everything about his clients-how much is in their bank accounts, what kind of sex their spouses like, if they married for money or power, and who cheated with whom. For the first time in his long career, Nissenbaum gives the lowdown on all the antics he's experienced in dealing with clients who have money to burn. From a C-note hooker-turned-trophy-wife who put her dying husband into a nursing home and drained his bank accounts, to the dad who spent millions to recover the kids his wife kidnapped, this memoir is by turns dark, cathartic, vengeful, and hilarious as it describes the high-end, high-conflict divorces that ruin the lives of everyone involved. Currently commanding $700 per hour, Nissenbaum sees firsthand how neurotic, unrealistic, status-hungry, manipulative, and sex-crazed his multimillion-dollar clients can be. In the style of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Nissenbaum and Sedgwick blow the doors off the dark side of marriage, making this outrageous and compelling memoir a truly guilty pleasure.

"A sweeping and lively history of one of the most dramatic stories never told--of the greatest railroad war of all time, fought by the daring leaders of the Santa Fe and the Rio Grande to seize, control, and create the American West"--

"Contemporary literature's finest voices explore and illuminate the writing life" -- dust jacket.