The Lights: A Novel is the second novel from Brian McGreevy. As Leda and Harry compete for influence over Jason, we come to understand Leda is a predator who preys mostly upon herself. Leda falls in with fellow students and best friends Harry and Jason (“imaginary Norman Mailers and George Plimptons toasting their defiant political incorrectness”), forming a dysfunctional threesome. Physical and emotional dislocation, combined with the fierce and paranoid competition among her fellow writers, bring out the worst in Leda, an academic overachiever (“Lisa Simpson–ing”) and insecure twenty-something who drinks too much and believes in portents. In this instance, “Hogwarts” refers to the Michener Center for Writers (MCW), the prestigious graduate program in creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin. Leda and Mark relocate from New York City to a gentrifying East Austin when Leda receives her Hogwarts letter. Through a hipster Austin MFA program, a love affair with a fellow writer, and the journey into her steel-gray past, I rooted for this Pennsylvania girl.Paperback, 978-1-9455-7212-8, (also available as an e-book), 216 pgs., $16.95 We have a way of doing things,’ says Leda, the narrator of Brian McGreevy’s novel. ―Chelsea Hodson, author of Pity the Animal It was utterly absorbing and fascinating to see where Brian McGreevy took this story.” This is a novel about temptation, validation, and all the different routes (and detours) one might take on her way to becoming an artist. “I love how The Lights begins in the familiar territory of an MFA program, but the narrator’s meditations immediately stretch far beyond it. But it’s sure to be a hell of a wild ride, and this novel is a hell of a wild read.” And when two blisteringly ambitious, profanely intellectual lovers collide, as they do in this scabrous, romantic novel, lasting love may be impossible.

“In the pressurized, airlocked intensity of this post-graduate romance, falling in love is hard. ―Kristen Radtke, author of Imagine Wanting Only This Above all, The Lights is a funny and honest look at how we negotiate our own morality on a sliding scale.” His characters spit childish banter disguised as high-register discourse designed to assert their dominance over their classmates, yet it soon becomes an all-too-relatable flirtatious, sexual language. Set within the confines of a prestigious writing program in Texas, McGreevy captures how young artists can behave like caged animals within a tight system of order. “With The Lights, Brian McGreevy has perfectly captured the minutia and absurdity of life in academia. ―Maureen O’Connor, New York Magazine’s “Sex Lives” Columnist “Brian McGreevy is alarmingly talented at embodying the mind of every beautifully broken millennial who has found―and squandered―love.

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