Lucas Schaefer + Kyle Dillon Hertz: The Slip

Join us for an in-person event with debut author Lucas Schaefer for a discussion of his debut novel The Slip. Joining Lucas in conversation is acclaimed author Kyle Dillon Hertz. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2025 by LitHub, Debutiful, and CrimeReads.

For readers of Jonathan Franzen and Nathan Hill comes a haymaker of an American novel about a missing teenage boy, cases of fluid and mistaken identity, and the transformative power of boxing.

Austin, Texas: It’s the summer of 1998, and there’s a new face on the scene at Terry Tucker’s Boxing Gym. Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Rothstein has never felt comfortable in his own skin, but under the tutelage of a swaggering, Haitian-born ex-fighter named David Dalice, he begins to come into his own. Even the boy’s slightly stoned uncle, Bob Alexander, who is supposed to be watching him for the summer, notices the change. Nathaniel is happier, more confident—tanner, even. Then one night he vanishes, leaving little trace behind.

Across the city, Charles Rex, now going simply by “X,” has been undergoing a teenage transformation of his own, trolling the phone sex hotline that his mother works, seeking an outlet for everything that feels wrong about his body, looking for intimacy and acceptance in a culture that denies him both. As a surprising and unlikely romance blooms, X feels, for a moment, like he might have found the safety he’s been searching for. But it's never that simple.

More than a decade later, Nathaniel’s uncle Bob receives a shocking tip, propelling him to open his own investigation into his nephew’s disappearance. The resulting search involves gymgoers past and present, including a down-on-his-luck twin and his opportunistic brother; a rookie cop determined to prove herself; and Alexis Cepeda, a promising lightweight, who crossed the US-Mexico border when he was only fourteen, carrying with him a license bearing the wrong name and face.

Bobbing and weaving across the ever-shifting canvas of a changing country, The Slip is an audacious, daring look at sex and race in America that builds to an unforgettable collision in the center of the ring.

Photo credit: Greg Marshall

Lucas Schaefer lives with his family in Austin. The Slip is his first novel.

Photo credit: Sam Lee

Kyle Dillon Hertz is the author of The Lookback Window, a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Vanity Fair named The Lookback Window one of the best novels of 2023. His work can be found in Esquire, Freeman’s, Time, and elsewhere. He received his MFA from NYU and a residency from Yaddo. He teaches at The New School.

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