With Violence, Nudity, Adult Content, the celebrated essayist and story writer Vince Passaro offers a revelatory first novel of crime, sexual damage, and personal redemption — in a tale that combines the grit of a Scott Turow courtroom thriller with an astute vision of a crumbling marriage, worthy of Russell Banks or Lorrie Moore. William Riordan is on the fast track at a New York law firm, where he's asked to defend a wealthy client accused of murdering his wife, and assigned to another harrowing case involving a rape victim who is psychologically traumatized and enraged, perhaps to the point of enacting a violent revenge. Disturbed by the details of both cases, Will bends his conscience and, eventually, his psyche to the needs of the firm. Yet as he rises to meet his greatest professional challenges, his personal life plummets — Ellie, Will's wife and the mother of their two young sons, wants a divorce. He must find his way back into her good graces — and shepherd his two murderous clients toward two very different realms of justice. Riordan's journey to the center of responsibility and of himself is a story alternately erotic, funny, and frightening — a contemporary tale of awakening and return. With present-day New York City teeming darkly as a backdrop to the relentless action, Violence, Nudity, Adult Content fires on all cylinders as a compelling literary page-turner.

"[T]his bruising first novel about marriage, the law, and, most of all, New York City [is] powerful, filled with heartbreak and surprising flashes of poetry." Kirkus Reviews

"This powerfully emotive debut novel...builds more angst than a Bergman festival, shining an uncomfortably bright light on the vicissitudes of fast-track urban life....Throwing legal-thriller curve balls and narrating near cinematic personal struggles, Passaro imbues the novel with mesmerizing suspense....[He] succeeds...admirably in fitting literary introspection to a legal thriller plot." Publishers Weekly

"Vince Passaro's novel serves up the New York City that its citizens both fear and love — that addictive landscape of bright lights and bad possibility. His story tumbles through sex and race and marriage and crime — all the good stuff, in other words — and readers will finish Passaro's novel wanting only one thing: to read his next one." Colin Harrison author of Afterburn

"Food, sex, God, parents, children, money, race. Passaro has orchestrated something that is original and jarring out of these elements. Violence, Nudity, Adult Content combines Tom Wolfe's broad social ambition and Richard Yates's force and darkness, with a touch of William Gaddis's obsession with The Law. It's suspenseful and brutally, beautifully reflective." Thomas Beller, author of The Sleep-Over Artist

"Passaro takes the now-formulaic legal thriller...and gives it several good spins and a deeper meaning....[He] brings his gift for realistic detail and biting commentary to his novel....A first-rate thriller." Connie Fletcher, Booklist (starred review)

"[A] gripping and suitably grimy portrait of how we live today — if, that is, we happen to live in New York City....[Its flaws are] not sufficient to sink a first novel as accomplished as this one." James Marcus, The New York Times Book Review

"What you might not expect from Vince Passaro's debut novel, with its title virtually reeking of snarky urban attitude, is sweetness. This tale of a New York corporate lawyer struggling with his wife, his conscience and his sleazeball clientele bears at least a vague family resemblance to other big-city, guy-centric, social-satirical novels of our age, from Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities to Kurt Andersen's Turn of the Century and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. But despite all its color and incident ? a cross-dressing, wife-killing CEO! a rich black bisexual rape victim! ? "Violence, Nudity, Adult Content" is really an interior story in a contemplative mode, whose hero prays to God, loves his kids and genuinely wants a life of hope and humility." Andrew O'Hehir, Salon

With "Violence, Nudity, Adult Content, " the noted essayist and short story writer Vince Passaro offers a revelatory first novel of crime, sexual damage, and personal redemption--in a story that combines the grit of a Scott Turow courtroom thriller with an astute vision of a crumbling marriage, worthy of Russell Banks or Lorrie Moore. With present-day New York City teeming darkly as a backdrop to the relentless action, this thriller fires on all cylinders as a compelling literary page-turner.

Vince Passaro's fiction, essays, and criticism have been published in numerous national magazines, such as Harper's (where he is contributing editor), Esquire, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, The Village Voice, Salon.com, and many other venues. He lives in New York City with his wife, Beth Passaro, also a writer, and their three children. Violence, Nudity, Adult Content is his first book.