Run Catch Kiss

From New York's most popular alternative-press columnist comes Run Catch Kiss, a sharp and irresistible novel of love, sex, scandal, and the pursuit of a boyfriend.

After graduating from Brown University, saucy, vivacious Ariel Steiner returns to her native New York City to become an actress and take the world by storm. Buoyed by daydreams of winning an Oscar, Ariel is determined to barrel into the limelight as Hollywood's hottest ingenue, and nothing can stand in her way — nothing, that is, but her freshman fifteen pounds, a senile talent agent, and the fact that she's living with her parents in Brooklyn and sleeping in her childhood bedroom. After nearly landing a TV role as "a chunky young woman who works as a cashier and studies part-time at City College," Ariel is forced to face facts: she's got a long way to go before rocketing to stardom.

Living on a coffee, yogurt, and skinless chicken diet and temping for the "Corposhit" in a dingy, claustrophobic office, Ariel awaits her break. When she lands the title role in a rock-musical version of Lolita, she discovers a hidden talent for channeling her erotic fantasies and soon thereafter finds a job as a sex columnist at City Week, New York's hottest downtown weekly.

Before long, Ariel's tell-all tales of bad dates with junkies, commitmentphobes, and manic-depressives begin to wreak havoc on her life. The hate mail rolls in, along with sticky crush letters, and her parents learn far more about her than they ever wanted to know. When the objects of her affection realize that they may become subjects of her next steamy column, some refuse to have anything to do with her, while others beg for their fifteen minutes of fame. But when Ariel finally falls in love, her "material" takes on a new, er, passion that even she couldn't imagine, and she must decide who she really is: a nice Jewish girl who wants to settle down, or a brazen sex kitten who'd rather meet a deadline than the man of her dreams.

Hilarious and wise, Run Catch Kiss is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the voyeuristic and avaricious culture that created that dangerous nineties phenomenon: the single girl who wants it all.