The Fourth Wall: A Novel

Meredith Mann is an aging journeyman, a member of the core acting company at a leading American regional theater. He's at the top of his game. Women, kids and critics adore him. Portland Repertory wants to extend his contract. But Mann is cracking up. His mind plays horrific tricks onstage. After hours, he goes to a dive-bar that isn't there, sees murders that don't happen and falls for a mystifying young woman who offers him a tragic choice of life or death. Mann teaches acting to make ends meet. His prized pupil is an astonishing, yet profoundly troubled young actress on the cusp of fame, Jesse Soliel. The seventeen year old is divorced from her parents and loves Mann like a father. She has a Broadway show up her sleeve and wants Mann to co-star. Fighting nightmares of geriatric angst and impure thoughts for the underage Soliel, Mann swoons over the sizzling movie star, Penelope Swan, a friend of a friend. Miss Swan has a sick and twisted stalker who follows her into the dive-bar that isn't there. Mann hurdles the wall of the multiverse where fate is born and fortunes form through the alchemy of fear and desire. Teetering on the brink of breakdown, Mann chases the secret of his disintegration and struggles to keep his dark, portentous dreams from coming true. The Fourth Wall is an original, heart-pounding, mind-bending mystery that crackles with suspense and soars to a stunning conclusion; a spare psychological thriller that shatters the 'fourth wall' between mind and soul. "By turns astonishing and thrilling, this novel does what the best books accomplish -- it takes us where we've never been, and makes the journey both compelling and unforgettable." Tom King, Emmy-winning TV writer.