The Apartment: A Novel - Rilegato

"It is precisely this sort of subversion, along with the author's shimmering prose, that makes THE APARTMENT such a surprisingly compelling read and so apropos; it captures the mood of the current moment and what seems to be a new "lost generation," one formed not so much by exposure to violence, as immunity to and alienation from it. Once upon a time, there was no place like home; in Mr. Baxter's world, home, it seems, is no place."―Adam Langer, The New York Times

"THE APARTMENT Greg Baxter's absorbing, atmospheric and enigmatic first novel, unfolds in extended paragraphs without chapter breaks on a single snowy mid-December day in a fictional European city that evokes aspects of Vienna, Prague and Budapest. Its long, frigid journey into a long, sleepless night explores a man's uneasy relationship with his past, himself and a world in which violence is inescapable."―Los Angeles Times

"THE APARTMENT proved to be a quiet and powerful read through and through. Baxter's clean and direct prose generates its own momentum. He chooses not to create a tidy drama where characters are explained by their pasts. Rather, he creates something bigger and more true."―The Daily Beast

"Violence, lurking offstage throughout the story, makes a shocking entrance near the end, setting in place everything that's come before. The effect is devastating, in the best possible way."―Denver Post

"A beautiful meditation on brutality and culture, which are sometimes one and the same."―Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Hot Five" list

"THE APARTMENT is an exciting debut novel, and leaves one eager for Baxter's follow-up, whenever that may be."―The Daily Beast, Hot Reads

"It is one of the best novels I have read in a long time... It is very much to Baxter's credit that he presents this struggle as if it were thriller, love story, philosophical novel and dark comedy combined, in a novel not like a bullet but like an arrow flying straight to the heart of the matter."―Stacey D'Erasmo, New York Times Book Review

"This profound and perfectly paced novel worked such magic on me that by its final pages I felt simultaneously destroyed and revived."―Antoine Wilson, author of Panorama City

"The novel shines most in the telling-the slow, deliberate narrative unfolds like a quiet symphony, and Baxter's prose lingers inexplicably, like a beautifully sad song."―Publisher's Weekly

"Clever, entertaining, brave, it stretches the rules while following a man through one day of his life. I loved it."―Roddy Doyle

Greg Baxter was born and raised in Texas. Over the last twenty years, he has lived variously in Ireland, England, Austria, Chicago, Louisiana, and Germany. In 2010 he published his first book, the critically acclaimed A Preparation for Death. He now lives in Berlin, where he writes and translates.