'Dazzlingly creepy storytelling, reminiscent of NOTES ON A SCANDAL' Grazia
'A short, bracing shock of a novel, easily gulped down in one sitting' Metro
'Written with a precise, sinister elegance, this is a gripping portrait of one woman's descent into madness' Heat
The Professor lives in Brooklyn; her partner Nathan left her when she couldn't have a baby. All she has now is her dead-end teaching job, her ramshackle apartment, and Nathan's old moggy, Cat. Who she doesn't even like.
The Actress lives a few doors down. She's famous and beautiful, with auburn hair, perfect skin, a lovely smile. She's got children - a baby, even. And a husband who seems to adore her. She leaves her windows open, even at night.
There's no harm, the Professor thinks, in looking in through the illuminated glass at that shiny, happy family, fantasizing about them, drawing ever closer to the actress herself. Or is there?
'Unsettling and compelling' Tammy Cohen
'Laura Sims has pulled off the high-wire act of making bitterness delicious' Vogue
'A short, bracing shock of a novel, easily gulped down in one sitting' Metro
'Written with a precise, sinister elegance, this is a gripping portrait of one woman's descent into madness' Heat
The Professor lives in Brooklyn; her partner Nathan left her when she couldn't have a baby. All she has now is her dead-end teaching job, her ramshackle apartment, and Nathan's old moggy, Cat. Who she doesn't even like.
The Actress lives a few doors down. She's famous and beautiful, with auburn hair, perfect skin, a lovely smile. She's got children - a baby, even. And a husband who seems to adore her. She leaves her windows open, even at night.
There's no harm, the Professor thinks, in looking in through the illuminated glass at that shiny, happy family, fantasizing about them, drawing ever closer to the actress herself. Or is there?
'Unsettling and compelling' Tammy Cohen
'Laura Sims has pulled off the high-wire act of making bitterness delicious' Vogue
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"[Looker] is an ephemeral fiction with a hard landing-like a window, seen in passing, that glows and goes dark."
-The New Yorker
"Looker is a sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror, whose wit and fluency cover its lacerating diagnosis of the deranging effects of envy, perhaps the most widespread social sickness of our age. The novel disturbs because we are all, to some degree, susceptible to the bacillus of the narrator's insanity. And her symptoms may be more recognizable than we care to admit."
-Wall Street Journal
"It's easy to imagine that stars live gauzily perfect lives. But what happens when the illusion turns deadly? In Sims's creepy debut, a woman fixates on the actress living across the street, admiration tilting into pathology as events in her own life-infertility, her husband's desertion-unmask her fragility. The ultimate unreliable narrator, she reveals her instability slowly. By the end you'll be gasping."
-People Magazine
"A wicked slow-burn . . . . Looker glides toward its ending as if eagerly awaiting the discovery of something ghastly."
-Entertainment Weekly
"I loved Looker for its take on the female gaze, and its understanding of what it means for women to look at each other...this is a novel I had been craving: an unflinching portrayal of women looking upon each other as disturbingly as men do."
-The New Statesman
"Is Looker a warning? A character study? An exploration of grief? A critique of American culture? It is all of these things, as well as a novel about what it means to be seen-and what it means to be unseen. Most essentially, it is a heady thriller that asks a reader to engage with a narrator who has been told by circumstance that she has nothing to live for, and who fills the empty spaces in her life with an unhealthy obsession. Lookerdemands the reader look at-really gaze at, live with, and experience-dangerous obsession, but more pointedly, the societal expectations that might lead to it in the first place."
-Ploughshares
"Reading Looker, it is clear that Sims's background is in poetry, because each word is chosen for maximum effect and evokes a visceral reaction in the reader. As you read, you can feel the urban setting all around you and you feel pulled along in the protagonist's life, embarrassed when she is, confused when she is and angry when she is. This is not a protagonist with whom you necessarily sympathize, but you will keep turning the page to see what happens next and to let Sims's prose wash over you. Will you feel a bit uneasy after reading Looker? Probably. Will you regret reading it? Absolutely not."
-Essex News Daily
"A spectacular debut novel ... Sims' masterful ending caps a book which does everything right.
-The Newark Star-Ledger
-The New Yorker
"Looker is a sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror, whose wit and fluency cover its lacerating diagnosis of the deranging effects of envy, perhaps the most widespread social sickness of our age. The novel disturbs because we are all, to some degree, susceptible to the bacillus of the narrator's insanity. And her symptoms may be more recognizable than we care to admit."
-Wall Street Journal
"It's easy to imagine that stars live gauzily perfect lives. But what happens when the illusion turns deadly? In Sims's creepy debut, a woman fixates on the actress living across the street, admiration tilting into pathology as events in her own life-infertility, her husband's desertion-unmask her fragility. The ultimate unreliable narrator, she reveals her instability slowly. By the end you'll be gasping."
-People Magazine
"A wicked slow-burn . . . . Looker glides toward its ending as if eagerly awaiting the discovery of something ghastly."
-Entertainment Weekly
"I loved Looker for its take on the female gaze, and its understanding of what it means for women to look at each other...this is a novel I had been craving: an unflinching portrayal of women looking upon each other as disturbingly as men do."
-The New Statesman
"Is Looker a warning? A character study? An exploration of grief? A critique of American culture? It is all of these things, as well as a novel about what it means to be seen-and what it means to be unseen. Most essentially, it is a heady thriller that asks a reader to engage with a narrator who has been told by circumstance that she has nothing to live for, and who fills the empty spaces in her life with an unhealthy obsession. Lookerdemands the reader look at-really gaze at, live with, and experience-dangerous obsession, but more pointedly, the societal expectations that might lead to it in the first place."
-Ploughshares
"Reading Looker, it is clear that Sims's background is in poetry, because each word is chosen for maximum effect and evokes a visceral reaction in the reader. As you read, you can feel the urban setting all around you and you feel pulled along in the protagonist's life, embarrassed when she is, confused when she is and angry when she is. This is not a protagonist with whom you necessarily sympathize, but you will keep turning the page to see what happens next and to let Sims's prose wash over you. Will you feel a bit uneasy after reading Looker? Probably. Will you regret reading it? Absolutely not."
-Essex News Daily
"A spectacular debut novel ... Sims' masterful ending caps a book which does everything right.
-The Newark Star-Ledger
"[Looker] is an ephemeral fiction with a hard landing-like a window, seen in passing, that glows and goes dark."
-The New Yorker
"Looker is a sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror, whose wit and fluency cover its lacerating diagnosis of the deranging effects of envy, perhaps the most widespread social sickness of our age. The novel disturbs because we are all, to some degree, susceptible to the bacillus of the narrator's insanity. And her symptoms may be more recognizable than we care to admit."
-Wall Street Journal
"It's easy to imagine that stars live gauzily perfect lives. But what happens when the illusion turns deadly? In Sims's creepy debut, a woman fixates on the actress living across the street, admiration tilting into pathology as events in her own life-infertility, her husband's desertion-unmask her fragility. The ultimate unreliable narrator, she reveals her instability slowly. By the end you'll be gasping."
-People Magazine
"A wicked slow-burn . . . . Looker glides toward its ending as if eagerly awaiting the discovery of something ghastly."
-Entertainment Weekly
"I loved Looker for its take on the female gaze, and its understanding of what it means for women to look at each other...this is a novel I had been craving: an unflinching portrayal of women looking upon each other as disturbingly as men do."
-The New Statesman
"Is Looker a warning? A character study? An exploration of grief? A critique of American culture? It is all of these things, as well as a novel about what it means to be seen-and what it means to be unseen. Most essentially, it is a heady thriller that asks a reader to engage with a narrator who has been told by circumstance that she has nothing to live for, and who fills the empty spaces in her life with an unhealthy obsession. Lookerdemands the reader look at-really gaze at, live with, and experience-dangerous obsession, but more pointedly, the societal expectations that might lead to it in the first place."
-Ploughshares
"Reading Looker, it is clear that Sims's background is in poetry, because each word is chosen for maximum effect and evokes a visceral reaction in the reader. As you read, you can feel the urban setting all around you and you feel pulled along in the protagonist's life, embarrassed when she is, confused when she is and angry when she is. This is not a protagonist with whom you necessarily sympathize, but you will keep turning the page to see what happens next and to let Sims's prose wash over you. Will you feel a bit uneasy after reading Looker? Probably. Will you regret reading it? Absolutely not."
-Essex News Daily
"A spectacular debut novel ... Sims' masterful ending caps a book which does everything right.
-The Newark Star-Ledger
-The New Yorker
"Looker is a sugarcoated poison pill of psychological terror, whose wit and fluency cover its lacerating diagnosis of the deranging effects of envy, perhaps the most widespread social sickness of our age. The novel disturbs because we are all, to some degree, susceptible to the bacillus of the narrator's insanity. And her symptoms may be more recognizable than we care to admit."
-Wall Street Journal
"It's easy to imagine that stars live gauzily perfect lives. But what happens when the illusion turns deadly? In Sims's creepy debut, a woman fixates on the actress living across the street, admiration tilting into pathology as events in her own life-infertility, her husband's desertion-unmask her fragility. The ultimate unreliable narrator, she reveals her instability slowly. By the end you'll be gasping."
-People Magazine
"A wicked slow-burn . . . . Looker glides toward its ending as if eagerly awaiting the discovery of something ghastly."
-Entertainment Weekly
"I loved Looker for its take on the female gaze, and its understanding of what it means for women to look at each other...this is a novel I had been craving: an unflinching portrayal of women looking upon each other as disturbingly as men do."
-The New Statesman
"Is Looker a warning? A character study? An exploration of grief? A critique of American culture? It is all of these things, as well as a novel about what it means to be seen-and what it means to be unseen. Most essentially, it is a heady thriller that asks a reader to engage with a narrator who has been told by circumstance that she has nothing to live for, and who fills the empty spaces in her life with an unhealthy obsession. Lookerdemands the reader look at-really gaze at, live with, and experience-dangerous obsession, but more pointedly, the societal expectations that might lead to it in the first place."
-Ploughshares
"Reading Looker, it is clear that Sims's background is in poetry, because each word is chosen for maximum effect and evokes a visceral reaction in the reader. As you read, you can feel the urban setting all around you and you feel pulled along in the protagonist's life, embarrassed when she is, confused when she is and angry when she is. This is not a protagonist with whom you necessarily sympathize, but you will keep turning the page to see what happens next and to let Sims's prose wash over you. Will you feel a bit uneasy after reading Looker? Probably. Will you regret reading it? Absolutely not."
-Essex News Daily
"A spectacular debut novel ... Sims' masterful ending caps a book which does everything right.
-The Newark Star-Ledger