The Book of Losman (Paperback or Softback)

"A fine and funny novel." —Owen King, author of The Curator

The Book of Losman is a novel to linger over, to savor, to read aloud, to reread." —Andrew Ervin, author of Burning Down George Orwell's House

This slim novel asks how far we'll go to cure what ails us, and explores how badly we want the past to solve the present. Semmel is an elegant writer, and this is an assured, remarkable debut." —Edan Lepucki, author of Time's Mouth

Daniel Losman is an American in Copenhagen. He translates books and lives alone. The highlights of his life are brief encounters with an offbeat artist he thinks he's in love with and weekends with his three-year-old son, whom he worries has inherited his Tourette Syndrome.

When he learns of a new drug that claims to get to the root of his Tourette through childhood memories, he's lured by promise of a cure. When he takes the pill, the memories he relives rejuvenates him.

But the more Losman takes the drug, the more he needs it. And when Losman steals some of the pills and locks himself in his apartment unsupervised, he soon finds himself trapped inside his own mind.

There's a way out of his head, but it comes at a price...

With intelligence and humor reminiscent of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library, The Book of Losman explores the depths one man will go to make himself whole.

"Semmel's debut is a clever and witty exploration of a man with copious anxiety. It's hilarious and packs a punch with a small page count. While you can easily finish this in a day, you'll be thinking about it for weeks."—Debutiful

"Losman is the new literary everyman I didn't know I needed." —Rion Amilcar Scott, author of The World Doesn't Require You

"K.E. Semmel's debut novel brilliantly captures the daily anxieties and mortification of being a human in the world. With warmth, wit, and remarkable perception, The Book of Losman reveals the lengths we're willing to go to spare our progeny from inheriting our deepest pains." —Ravi Mangla, author of The Observant

K.E. Semmel is a writer and translator of more than a dozen books from Danish or Norwegian. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Ontario Review, Lithub, The Millions, HuffPost, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, The Writer's Chronicle, The Southern Review, Washington Post, and elsewhere. His translations include novels by, among others, Naja Marie Aidt, Karin Fossum, Simon Fruelund, and Jussi Adler Olsen. He is a former Literary Translation Fellow from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Book of Losman is his debut novel.