A Novel Obsession

In Barasch’s addictive if uninspired debut, a 24-year-old New York City bookseller becomes fixated on her boyfriend’s ex. Naomi Ackerman starts investigating Rosemary Pierce online, which quickly turns into physical stalking. Naomi follows Rosemary, a book editor, around the city and starts casual conversations with her, without letting on to Caleb, a reticent Welsh mathematician. During a launch party at Naomi’s shop for a book Rosemary edited, the two women exchange numbers and become fast friends. Naomi, a wannabe novelist, writes about their encounters in order to take control of her “narrative” with Caleb and to create a world in which she wins Caleb and is “braver, bolder, more reckless.” As she tests the limits of her relationships with both Caleb and Rosemary, she imagines herself to be more “adventurous” than Rosemary, as when, for instance, she initiates sex with Caleb in the hallway of her apartment building. At times, Naomi comes across as a parody of a self-absorbed writer, which makes this story of wish fulfillment read like satire without the skewering, and Barasch adds a trauma plot that explains Naomi’s behavior but feels hackneyed. Still, she does a fine job building tension between the two women. This isn’t the finest example of the people-behaving-badly story, but it should just do the trick for those into such tales. Agent: Callie Deitrick and Wendy Sherman, Wendy Sherman Assoc. (Mar.)