Amanda Filipacchi – författare

Barb and Lily, two friends at opposite ends of the beauty spectrum, have the same problem: each fears she will never find a love that can overcome her looks. To complicate matters, they discover that they may have a murderer in their midst, that Barb’s calm disposition is more dangerously provocative than her beauty and Lily’s musical talents are more powerful than anyone could have imagined. “Funny, surreal, absurd and charmingly preposterous” (The New York Times), The Unfortunate Importance of Beauty is a modern day, “loopily entertaining” (The Washington Post), fairy tale. With biting wit and offbeat charm, Amanda Filipacchi illuminates the labyrinthine relationship between beauty, desire and identity.

The internationally acclaimed debut of a novelist described by the New York Times Book Review as a "lovely comic surrealist"—a story of sex, love, and art found in the unlikeliest of placesJeremy Acidophilus is not really named after the yogurt culture—he just likes to tell people that he is. Actually, he thought of that line years ago but has never been brave enough to use it on someone—until he meets Lady Henrietta over a dish of green Jell-O in his new favorite coffee shop. A painter of naked men for Playgirl magazine who has taken her name from The Picture of Dorian Gray, Henrietta has the power to make Jeremy do all kinds of things he would not normally do, including disrobe for a stranger. He thinks that he must be falling in love. Think again, says Sara, the artist''s outrageously precocious eleven-year-old daughter as she sets out to seduce the new model. From the gray streets of Manhattan to the pastel kaleidoscope of Disney World, Jeremy''s journey of self-discovery is both irresistibly absurd and uncannily real. Everyone—from his cat Minou to a dancing magician named Laura to the agents hired by his mother to taunt him—has advice for Jeremy. Before he can hear any of it, though, he first needs to find out how to listen to himself.A witty and wild exploration of sexuality, creativity, and the paradoxes of self, Nude Men is the rare novel with the power to charm and shock in equal measure.

The Pygmalion myth recast by one of America''s boldest and most bewitching storytellersAnna Graham has one ambition—to be a great actress. The only problem is, she can''t stop being herself. She is proud, stubborn, and moody; according to her acting teacher, she needs to be as bland and pliable as warm wax. Even when she rents a Good Fairy Queen Costume—complete with crown, wand, and wig—and walks the streets of New York City until three thirty in the morning, she fails to be anyone but Anna Graham. "Help," she thinks, smoking a cigarette in a deserted subway station. "Help!" screams a man at the other end of the platform as two attackers pull him onto the train tracks. Red pepper spray in hand, the Good Fairy Queen rushes to Damon Wetly''s rescue—and Anna''s wish comes true, in the oddest way imaginable.Locked inside a cage in Wetly''s cloud-filled country home, Anna learns to do everything—walk, talk, think, eat, breathe—differently. When she finally escapes, she becomes a star—as Wetly promised she would. The new-and-improved Anna attracts plenty of admirers—including a paraplegic soap opera celebrity; the world''s most famous supermodel; and a handsome cellist, Weight Watchers counselor, etiquette expert, and exotic dancer named Nathaniel Powers—but she only has eyes for her former captor, the creator of miniature clouds and major actresses. Just when it seems that her fairy tale ending is right around the corner, Anna''s whole world threatens to evaporate into thin air.Fearless and fascinating, Vapor holds a funhouse mirror up to some of our deepest and most alluring notions about fame, identity, and desire.

A New York love story that''s "part suspense comedy and part philosophical treatise on the neurosis of love" from the author of Nude Men (Bret Easton Ellis).At thirty-two years old, Lynn Gallagher is one of the five most influential contemporary-art gallery owners in Manhattan. Too bad her face is dead. Not so, says Lynn''s assistant, but that is how it feels when she compares it to her stalker''s face. Alan Morton may be a plump, goofy-looking accountant, but his face glows with life when he peers at Lynn through her gallery window. The difference is that Alan wants something—her—very badly, while Lynn wants nothing at all.   So she decides to stalk.  The object of her obsession—French attorney Roland Dupont—is chosen at random in a Chelsea bakery. He is attractive, but it is not until he expresses his disinterest in her that Lynn begins to truly desire him. Alan, jealous of Lynn''s newfound hobby, befriends Roland to find out what she sees in him. When Roland learns that he acquired his stalker by happenstance, he decides that he might be interested in Lynn after all. Soon all three are brazenly pursuing each other across the city—from adult education classes in the art of beading to meetings of Stalker''s Anonymous—as they try to figure out what it is that they truly want. The advice of Ray, the homeless psychologist who observes their madcap comings and goings, is not much help at all: "Take a break, an antidepressant. Get hold of yourselves."  A hip and darkly humorous novel about the mysteries of romance, Love Creeps is pure Amanda Filipacchi—funny, wicked, and wise.