The Lookback Window - by Kyle Dillon Hertz (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

New York Times Editors' Choice
Vanity Fair's 20 Favorite Books of 2023
Debutiful Best Book of the Year
Crimereads Best Debut of August
"Hertz has managed to tell a story of queer healing with all the narrative force of a thriller and the searing fury of an indictment." --The New York Times Book Review

A fearless debut novel of resilience, transcendence, and the elusive promise of justice.

Brooklyn, 2019. Dylan has lived through the unfathomable: three years as a victim of sex trafficking as a teen. Now years later--long after a police investigation that went nowhere with the domestic life he built to survive--the Child Victims Act opens up a way forward: a one-year window to sue past abusers, but once the lookback window starts, Dylan seeks answers everywhere: in the druggy reveries of Fire Island to the love-drunk strangers of summer nights downtown and the lawyers who watch over the park, finally emerging from an erotic and violent spiral with a new clarity of purpose: a righteous determination to gaze, unflinching, upon the brutal men whose faces have haunted him for a decade, and to extract justice on his own terms.

Review Quotes

"Hertz has managed to tell a story of queer healing with all the narrative force of a thriller and the searing fury of an indictment. It's an achievement of language, of style, in which the process of finding one's way back to the world is considered at least in part as an act of learning to 'speak the unspeakable.' It's a matter, Hertz seems to say, of finding the right words....At his best, Hertz sheds the trappings of traditional realism, adopting instead a swerving, almost psychedelic style that mirrors the abrupt and mercurial perceptions of a turbulent mind. He follows the worthy example of writers like Jean Rhys, Gary Indiana and Denis Johnson."
--The New York Times Book Review

"Hertz's haunting debut gazes unwaveringly into the darkness--and unexpected light--of memory."
--Electric Literature

"The prose is remarkable, alternating from lush sensuality to unsparing brutality to quick cutting asides. This marks the arrival of a vital new talent."
--Publishers Weekly

"A promising debut seeking storytelling to match the trauma it evokes."
--Kirkus

"This forceful, necessary novel...depicts the often silent suffering and unfathomable effects of sexual abuse. Readers of Garth Greenwell or Eimear McBride will find it well worth diving into."
--Library Journal

"The Lookback Window will shake you to your core... Kyle Dillon Hertz's phenomenal prose is tender and powerful and provides moments of beauty and hope even in the darkest and more harrowing moments."
--Debutiful

"...in its sensitive portrayal of the profoundly social nature of recovery and justice, The Lookback Window asks us to consider in all its complexity the question of how we might be able to make a better world together."
--Interview Magazine

"Kyle Dillon Hertz's searing debut novel puts a spotlight on male sexual abuse and a path toward healing...The Lookback Window powerfully explores the lasting effects of childhood trauma."
--Shondaland

"The Lookback Window is a beautiful and heartbreaking tour de force. Hertz writes vengeance as salvation, refusal as a reclamation of humanity."
--Raven Leilani, New York Times bestselling author of Luster

"The Lookback Window shines light in the darkest places--sometimes reflecting off the surface of a pool, other times off the blade of a knife, always gleaming. With elegant prose and propulsive energy, Hertz generates power by refusing to look away. The result is luminous."
--Tess Gunty, winner of the National Book Award for The Rabbit Hutch

"Kyle Dillon Hertz's The Lookback Window is fearless, by which I mean vulnerable. Sentence by sentence, it moves along with a fierce and psychedelic honesty reminiscent of Joan Didion's best work. I'm amazed by how much beauty and humor Hertz is able to mine from the most harrowing of circumstances. There's a multi-level testimony--and indictment--here for those brave enough to face it. The Lookback Window is audacious, scandalous, and startling in ways that can only be properly conveyed by a pen as careful and compassionate as Hertz's. A gutsy, unflinching debut."
--Robert Jones, Jr., author of The New York Times bestseller, The Prophets, a finalist National Book Award

"Exceptional and electrifying, Kyle Dillon Hertz's The Lookback Window defies, challenges and escapes the/all rules, becoming an utterly unique, riveting and sensational work of fiction. A triumph, a masterful exploration of forgiving and forgetting--of the fight for what is right, and yours."
--Pajtim Statovci, author of National Book Award finalist Crossing

"The Lookback Window is an unforgettable debut, as beautiful as it is brutal. Kyle Dillon Hertz's writing is immediate, unvarnished, and authentic, and his novel investigates all that is fragile and unbreakable in the human psyche. This is a powerful book that kept me up at night. It won't soon let go of me."
--Edan Lepucki, author of the New York Times bestseller California

"Raw and urgent, The Lookback Window dares us to follow in its search for justice--and what lies beyond. Kyle Dillon Hertz has written an uncompromising journey. An incredibly moving one, too."
--Zak Salih, author of Let's Get Back to the Party

About the Author

Kyle Dillon Hertz is the author of The Lookback Window, a New York Times Editors' Choice. His work can be found in Esquire, Freeman's, Time, and more. He received his MFA from NYU and a residency from Yaddo. He teaches at The New School.