Emma Who Saved My Life

Wilton Barnhardt's novel of coming of age in New York City brims with energy, surprise, irresistible humor, and the heady rush of youth. Its hero, Gil Freeman, a mid-western aspiring actor, comes to the city in search of stradom--but instead encounters the perils of Alphabet City, the desperation of off-off-off Broadway theater...and the exhilarating, exasperating, absolutely unique Emma, around whom his life comes to turn. Charming and engaging, quintessentially American, Emma Who Saved my Life is one of the extraordinary fiction debuts of our time.

Wilton Barnhardt is the author of the novels Gospel and Show World. A native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, he is the director of the Masters in Fine Arts program in Creative Writing at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, where he lives. His new novel, Lookaway, Lookaway is forthcoming in 2013.

"Emma is a winner--a book of enormous charm....One of the most promising fictional debuts in many years."--Publishers Weekly

"Big, funny, engaging, unsentimental...delightful."--New York Post

"This is an immensely winning book."--Los Angeles Times Book Review