The Poser

Praise for Jacob Rubin and The Poser
"The Poser is smart and grand and funny, a wonderful fable. Mr. Rubin is a great hope for comic fiction in the 21st century. He's got the spirit and the ear." --Sam Lipsyte, New York Times bestselling author of The Ask

"I yawped--because when you read a book as exquisite as The Poser, you yawp. Have you ever met a character like Giovanni Bernini? My heart breaks even now. With astonishing control, Mr. Rubin has created the perfect comic noir tragedy of mimicry and betrayal, of great love and greater loss. Bernini is one of fiction's great ciphers and his parallel universe is such a good imitation of our universe I can no longer distinguish which is which. This is a novel that will be loved and admired for years to come." --Reif Larsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and I Am Radar "Jacob Rubin writes with more vitality, drive, and vision than any young writer I've seen in ten years." --Barry Hannah
"Zany." --Booklist

"With twists and snap and more than its share of vaudevillian flair, The Poser is often-dazzling, a high-wire entertainment about entertainment. Jacob Rubin is a first-rate comic writer, and somehow, don't ask me how, he's crafted a hummingly smooth, aching look at why we perform, loneliness, and the nature of self." --Charles Bock, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children "The Poser seduces with its imaginative energy, the sheer wit and reach of its invention, but is propelled at its core by a deeply human generosity to its characters--their fierce and confused and fragile hearts." --Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams "Jacob Rubin has, to borrow a term from his wondrous debut novel about the world's greatest impressionist, deftly unraveled the 'thread' of his protagonist and impersonated a writer twenty years his senior. The Poser is a rollicking picaresque that is also a surprisingly affecting meditation on authenticity and loneliness." --Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "The liveliest prose and most ebullient voice in fiction I've read in some time. Full of rich, odd, humorously soulful, and tortured souls who yearn for well, they don't often know, even if they think they do, but they want it. It's a romp, this novel, as if Dickens spawned Stanley Elkin and the Pynchon of The Crying of Lot 49, yet the voice is Rubin's own. Masterful prose, full of kinetic energy." --Brad Watson, author of the National Book Award finalist The Heaven of Mercury and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives

"Jacob Rubin's The Poser is a tour de force of voice, a genius act of ventriloquism, a terrific novel. From the opening you'll be hooked, as I was, and you'll love it all the way through."
--Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

Praise for Jacob Rubin and The Poser
"The Poser is smart and grand and funny, a wonderful fable. Mr. Rubin is a great hope for comic fiction in the 21st century. He's got the spirit and the ear." --Sam Lipsyte, New York Times bestselling author of The Ask

"I yawped--because when you read a book as exquisite as The Poser, you yawp. Have you ever met a character like Giovanni Bernini? My heart breaks even now. With astonishing control, Mr. Rubin has created the perfect comic noir tragedy of mimicry and betrayal, of great love and greater loss. Bernini is one of fiction's great ciphers and his parallel universe is such a good imitation of our universe I can no longer distinguish which is which. This is a novel that will be loved and admired for years to come." --Reif Larsen, New York Times bestselling author of The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet and I Am Radar "Jacob Rubin writes with more vitality, drive, and vision than any young writer I've seen in ten years." --Barry Hannah
"Zany." --Booklist

"With twists and snap and more than its share of vaudevillian flair, The Poser is often-dazzling, a high-wire entertainment about entertainment. Jacob Rubin is a first-rate comic writer, and somehow, don't ask me how, he's crafted a hummingly smooth, aching look at why we perform, loneliness, and the nature of self." --Charles Bock, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children "The Poser seduces with its imaginative energy, the sheer wit and reach of its invention, but is propelled at its core by a deeply human generosity to its characters--their fierce and confused and fragile hearts." --Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of The Empathy Exams "Jacob Rubin has, to borrow a term from his wondrous debut novel about the world's greatest impressionist, deftly unraveled the 'thread' of his protagonist and impersonated a writer twenty years his senior. The Poser is a rollicking picaresque that is also a surprisingly affecting meditation on authenticity and loneliness." --Teddy Wayne, author of The Love Song of Jonny Valentine "The liveliest prose and most ebullient voice in fiction I've read in some time. Full of rich, odd, humorously soulful, and tortured souls who yearn for well, they don't often know, even if they think they do, but they want it. It's a romp, this novel, as if Dickens spawned Stanley Elkin and the Pynchon of The Crying of Lot 49, yet the voice is Rubin's own. Masterful prose, full of kinetic energy." --Brad Watson, author of the National Book Award finalist The Heaven of Mercury and PEN/Faulkner Award finalist Aliens in the Prime of Their Lives

"Jacob Rubin's The Poser is a tour de force of voice, a genius act of ventriloquism, a terrific novel. From the opening you'll be hooked, as I was, and you'll love it all the way through."
--Tom Franklin, New York Times bestselling author of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter