It's a completely normal school day. But at Osbourne High School, shy James is stressed: wearing his recently deceased father's suit, he seems like the only responsible adult in an unrestrained, over-sexed society. He can't stand his fellow students, who want to be cool but are actually just callous and vulgar and constantly wear each other down. And now even the girl he likes, Chloe, a kindred spirit, seems to have discovered her feminine side while on holiday in Florida – and then some! Seeing no other option, James declares war: I Against Osbourne! Not just against the principal, whom he blackmails with knowledge about his sex-escapade with a female student, but against the entire high school. The ›outsider of all outsiders‹ resolves to stir up Osbourne High in a way that none of the hipsters ever has.

John Mapother, son of the most powerful family in the provincial backwater of Bashford, decides after various private failures that he wants to enter American Congress. Except he has no idea about the world of his constituents. But his younger brother, Blue Gene, the black sheep of the family, does, and he also knows that simple folk are not that simple at all, starting with the rebellious punk rock girl he’s fallen in love with.

A great American family drama, highly intelligent, melancholic and surprisingly topical.

In a small town in Kentucky, five outsiders have come together: an eighty-year-old woman who walks around in cowboy boots and a Sex Pistols t-shirt; a beautiful woman in a wheelchair; a young Iraqi searching for the American soldier who wounded him in the First Gulf War; a precocious young girl; and an extremely articulate African American, who seems to be constantly on drugs but in reality makes his way through life completely sober. Wherever the five freaks show up, people laugh at them. The passion that unites them is music, their shared dream is to conquer the world with their music, and together they form the power-pop new-wave heavy-metal punk-rock band known as THE FREAKS. In the words of their lead singer, »The only way to make this a better place would be for God to drop the bomb.« Alone they are only outsiders, but as a group they might just be the bomb that God does not want to drop …

An old, sick man close to death: Foster Lipowitz, founder of a media empire, has flooded the market with meaningless pop songs, bad movies and cynical TV series, and has earned a fortune. He regrets what he has inflicted on culture, and at the end of his life he wants to make amends.
A plan: In Midwestern corn fields he builds a school, where highly talented children are educated to become true artists. And because he knows that true art originates in suffering, he makes sure that his pupils get enough of that.
A dark guardian angel: every pupil is assigned a ›protector‹, there to do the dirty work. One of them is Harlan, a disillusioned ex-musician. He takes his job very seriously.
A victim: Vincent Spinetti, the most gifted student of all. Thanks to Harlan's efforts to litter Vincent's life with catastrophes, his genius comes to full fruition. The more pain and sorrow he experiences, the greater Vincent's art gets.
An unlikely friendship: hard to believe, but Vincent and Harlan become friends. But Vincent doesn't know what Harlan's job really is …
An author with a unique voice who easily bridges the gap between levity and seriousness, between satire and poetry.

Ten stories about striving for happiness and trying to find a narrow path out of loneliness.

An entire cosmos in a tiny world – atmospheric, laconic, captivating, and featuring numerous headstrong characters you’ll want to get to know better (but not live next door to).

A young man awaits his love with two drinks, and she’s right on time – on TV. A 12-year-old girl doesn’t want to grow up too fast. And a 40-something compulsive hoarder is brought back to life by a woman who seems even sadder than himself.

Ten interlinked stories about survival. About the pursuit of happiness, against all odds, in small-town Kentucky.
Ten ordinary yet unique people – lonely men, women, teenagers – whose lives haven’t turned out the way they imagined them. Who nevertheless struggle for their own small slice of happiness and who can’t wait to escape their backwater town. They may get themselves bloody noses, but they don’t give up. Because they know it’s going to happen for them someday.

Frighteningly brutal, hilarious and moving to tears, I Know It’s Going to Happen for You Someday is the return of one of the most talented writers of our times.