This Is How You Fall

Jacob Cameron Asprey, Jr., is the charming son of a charming crook who’s currently residing in the state pen. Strangled by family ties, Jake is barely scraping by, working as a lifeguard at the tony country club on the other side of town. He’s marking time, treading water, haunted by Sally Godstreet, the woman he’s loved all his life―the woman he should have made a life with, now orbiting just out his reach.

When a local crime boss offers him a deal he’d be a fool to take and a chump to pass up, Jake sees a way out of his troubles―until his options begin to close down, and he finds himself at the heart of a dark plot that will place those he loves in harm’s way.

This is How You Fall is a story of old flames, old debts, and a new twist on an old con. Part-heist, part-love story, and part-literary noir thriller, it’s a moody rumination on identity and loyalty, with dazzing plot twists that lead to an inevitable, destructive conclusion.

Keith was born in Durham, North Carolina in 1971 but was raised in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. He attended Hobart College in Geneva, New York. He is an editor for The New York Times, and lives in Westchester with his wife, Jessica, and his daughters, Grace and Margot.

He is the author of Ghostfires, The Art of Losing, and Cooking for Gracie, a memoir based on food writing first published in The New York Times.