Soothing music for stray cats

the long version

Mark's best friend Jim just jumped from the twentieth floor, forcing him to reassess the way he's been living. This contemporary rites of passage novel is a calm, cool, and well-controlled fiction debut flooded with warmth and humanity. With the reflection of The Catcher in the Rye and the depth of Anne Enright's The Gathering, it captures the moment following disaster where things can swing either way. Music and literature save Mark as he faces the question: is it ever right to intervene in others' lives? Themes include friendship; class; compassion; altruism and intervention; trust and innocence; belonging.