Man in the Empty Suit

The year he turns 39, though, the party takes a stressful turn for the worse. Before he even makes it into the grand ballroom for a drink he encounters the body of his forty-year-old self, dead of a gunshot wound to the head. As the older versions of himself at the party point out, the onus is on him to figure out what went wrong--he has one year to stop himself from being murdered, or they're all goners. As he follows clues that he may or may not have willingly left for himself, he discovers rampant paranoia and suspicion among his younger selves, and a frightening conspiracy among the Elders. Most complicated of all is a haunting woman possibly named Lily who turns up at the party this year, the first person besides himself he's ever seen at the party. For the first time, he has something to lose. Here's hoping he can save some version of his own life.

Sean Ferrell's fiction has appeared in journals such as Electric Literature's "The Outlet" and The Adirondack Review. His short story "Building an Elephant" won The Fulton Prize. His debut novel, Numb, was described as "eye catching," "daring" and "offbeat." He lives and works, in no particular order, in New York City.