Primeros reseñadoresAlix Strauss

BASED UPON AVAILABILITY is the story of eight women, each exploring the basic need for human connection while seeking to understand themselves better. They are lonely, strong and driven women who, when pushed to the edge, must fight for their lives as they struggle to become the women they wish to be. Meet Trish, a gallery owner struggling to deal with the wedding and the dramatic weight loss of her best friend, changes that lead her down a self-destruction path; Robin, a realtor, who, after experiencing a lifetime of abuse by her older sister, is forced to take revenge; Anne, a lonely, single woman who suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder, searches for normalcy and love; Louise, a drug-addicted rock star, is sent away to dry out by her just as famous publicist; Franny, a Southerner turned wanna-be Manhattanite, is envious of her neighbors’ lives and their nesting habits and becomes unhealthily attached to them; Sheila, a single teacher is driven to punish her boyfriend when he informs her he’s returning to his wife; Ellen, a married, childless woman so desperate to have children insists she’s pregnant. Morgan, a manager at the swanky Four Seasons in Manhattan—and haunted by the memory of her dead sister—is the thread who weaves these women together. The hotel offers sanctuary to each—for an hour, for several days—and while some find solace, others find only despair. The novel opens with Morgan on her dead sister’s birthday. Desperate to fill the void of loss and in dire need of connection to something or someone, she gets a “quick fix” by retrieving the room keys of random guests - a habit she’s trying to break - and snoops through their belongings, tries on their clothing, sprays their perfume, even pops their prescriptions pills. With a keen eye for human connection and the universal longings we all experience, Alix Strauss presents nuanced portraits of these seemingly ordinary women. The result is an utterly original read, a character-driven mix of dark themes and light prose with Strauss’ unique touch. BASED UPON AVAILABILITY examines the walls we put up as we attempt intimacy, while inspecting the ruins when they’re knocked down.