Will today be the day the world burns down? Will a wildfire sweep across the landscape and consume everyone? Will the torrential rains fall and wash them all away? 

A stark and stunning debut, I’m From Nowhere follows Claire as she mourns the sudden death of her husband and comes to terms with the fact of being a woman without a child, a job, or a man. She confronts a dying planet and an emerging sense of self, while men arrive with offers to save her from herself. Lerman refuses easy answers and searches the treacherous depths of desire, pain, and entanglement, asking readers if it is possible for a woman to reclaim her life and set its terms without succumbing to suicide or submission.

 Told in subtly experimental, sparse prose, and set in the American Southwest of today or ten years from now, I’m From Nowhere is a “breathtakingly honest, subversive” examination of the stories we are told—and the stories we tell ourselves—about identity, permanence, and love.

 PRAISE FOR

I’M FROM NOWHERE 

“A heartbreaker of a debut.”  

-Buzzfeed Books

“To say a lot without saying much, to pack hints that can explode in a reader’s mind in a tiny space, like Lerman has done, is no small feat.”

-Moazzam Sheikh, Nonconformist Magazine

“A slim book that packs a powerful philosophical punch.”

 - Kat Solomon, Heavy Feather Review

“Lerman’s prose is precise and gutting — the experience is like grazing death on the lips. You know you’re close to something dark and special, and you want to know it more deeply, so you keep reading on, fervently.”

— Elle Nash, author of Animals Eat Eachother

"Contrary to what the title of her debut suggests, Lindsay Lerman comes from experience, every line dripping with dark humor and honesty. We may not live on this earth long enough to fully understand reality's complexities and contradictions but books like I’m From Nowhere act like anchors, breadcrumbs to carry us through the despair."

 — Michael J. Seidlinger, author of Dreams of Being

“In I'm from Nowhere, Lindsay Lerman's voice is powerful and yet relatable. I admire her ability to effortlessly and instantly pull the reader into her protagonist's despair as she spirals through a percussive, nonstop interrogation of the self. Reading I'm from Nowhere is like digging through a fine sand and finding only coarse gravel below, but thanks to Lerman's beautifully-honed prose, we find ourselves digging ever deeper, looking for an end to the grief we're not sure exists.”

—Zac Smith, author of 50 Barn Poems

“With I’m From Nowhere, Lerman forces us to recognize that [...] the nature of all that exists is to destroy itself. [...] A dark undercurrent of human experience is brought to the fore. [...] The result is devastating insight into feminine consciousness unbound.”

—Charlene Elsby, author of Hexis

There’s so much grief, devastation and longing oozing from the cob-webbed pages of Lindsay Lerman’s haunted, razor-sharp debut novel, I’m From Nowhere, that it could have easily been called The Third Joy Division Album, which of course makes it more of a ‘summer sinkhole’ than a ‘summer beach read,’ so I’ll give it a 5 out of 5 coffins set ablaze beneath the killing moon—Powerfully stark and undeniable.”

 —Brian Alan Ellis, author of Bad Poet

Second edition with Introductions by cover artist Matthew Revert & author Lindsay Lerman

Cover by Matthew Revert

matthewrevertdesign.com

ISBN: 9781944866464