Lou Berney

I’m Lou Berney, and my most newest novel is DARK RIDE (September, 2023). S.A. Cosby calls it "thrilling and heartbreaking." Lisa Lutz says, "If you don’t love this book, give me a call so I can tell you what a moron you are." (I think she might be serious.) I’m also the author of four other novels, including NOVEMBER ROAD and THE LONG AND FARAWAY GONE. Between the two of them, those books won the Edgar, Hammett, Anthony, Barry, Macavity, Steel Dagger, ALA, and Oklahoma Book awards. I have discovered that there are a lot of different ways to nervously stammer and stumble through an acceptance speech. Between the ages of 12 and 19 I was fired from approximately nine different jobs, including newspaper delivery boy (dereliction of duty), apartment complex maintenance man (general incompetence), and photo darkroom attendant (dereliction of duty, general incompetence, inappropriate use of darkroom). Since the age of 19, I have not been fired from a job. My wife and I travel whenever we can (and whenever we save up enough airline miles). We’ve been to Australia, Japan, Egypt, and Colombia. My favorite experience was in Rwanda, where we visited the mountain gorillas. The guides warned us to be careful because although the gorillas are gentle, they are “gorilla gentle.” I love dogs. No, I really mean it. I LOVE dogs. I happen to live with the best dog in the world, a golden retriever who thinks he can control me with his mind. But the joke is on him, because every time he stares at me I just give him a treat and he goes away. A (very) small sampling of my favorite writers, in no particular order: Kate Atkinson, Elmore Leonard, Kelly Link, Walter Mosley, Laura Lippman, Flannery O’Connor, Don Winslow, Megan Abbott, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Louise Erdrich, Stephen Harrigan, Ivy Pochoda, Lynda Barry (not to mention S.A. Cosby and Lisa Lutz).