THE BEST OF YOUTH

After inheriting fifteen million dollars, an awkward but charming 24-year-old moves to Brooklyn to embrace his somewhat delusionary vision of contemporary youth culture.

Henry Lang is a smart but unpretentious young man with a degree from Harvard and limited social skills. After his parents are killed in a freak sailing accident, leaving him a substantial inheritance, he moves to Brooklyn to see if he can make it in publishing, perhaps fall in love, and attend the sorts of parties and events that he imagines 20-somethings in Brooklyn most likely frequent. Unfortunately, Henry is something of a target for other, savvier Brooklyn young people. He finds himself in a string of increasingly troubling situations and demoralizing romantic adventures. Things fall apart for him in catastrophic ways when he agrees to ghost-write a young adult novel for a charismatic but drug-addicted and sometimes-violent actor. Will Henry lose everything he has to save his integrity?

By turns hilarious and tragic, THE BEST OF YOUTH is a brilliant modern day comedy of manners.

Michael Dahlie's first novel, A GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE TO GRACEFUL LIVING won him the PEN/Hemingway award in 2009 and he is also the recipient of the 2010 Whiting Writers' Award. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review and Tin House. He is also the author of several young adult books, published under the name Michael Simmons. Dahlie is currently the Booth Tarkington Writer-in-Residence at Butler University, in Indianapolis.