Showing results by author "Jessica Gross" in All Categories

Olive just wants people to open up. As a radio host, she interviews writers about their works-in-progress, probing for insight; as a friend and a sister, she’s hungry for closeness. She has a habit of recording people without their knowledge, just to hear the world reflected back at her. Olive is approaching her mid-thirties, coddled by her mother and perpetually single, when she meets Theo. He’s a surgeon – he literally cuts people open, which fascinates her – and, with a quick wit and a charming gap between his two front teeth, he seems to adore her.

In Hysteria, we meet a young woman an hour into yet another alcohol-fueled, masochistic, sexual bender at her local bar. There is a new bartender working this time, one she hasn't seen before, but who can properly make a drink. He looks familiar, and as she is consumed by shame from her behavior the previous week - hooking up with her parents' colleague and her roommate's brother - she also becomes convinced that her Brooklyn bartender is actually Sigmund Freud. They embark on a relationship, and she is forced to confront her past.