{"id":1530,"date":"2023-11-03T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theskywriteshere.com\/?p=1530"},"modified":"2024-01-30T11:48:42","modified_gmt":"2024-01-30T16:48:42","slug":"featuring-author-kat-hausler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theskywriteshere.com\/index.php\/2023\/11\/03\/featuring-author-kat-hausler\/","title":{"rendered":"Featuring Author Kat Hausler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Featuring Author Kat Hausler’s What I Know About July!<\/p>\n\n\n

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Title: What I Know About July
Author: Kat Hausler
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Contemporary Women
Release Date: October 31, 2023<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Simon Kemper, recently out of rehab and experiencing moderate success with his band in Berlin, is haunted by a stalker. July appears at every show, sends numerous postcards to his label, and behaves as if she knows him well. Like she owns him. When she suddenly vanishes after one of his performances, Simon becomes the prime suspect. His initial goal is to clear his name, but as he searches for July, he begins a deeper psychological journey. The threads of July\u2019s disappearance turn out to be tangled into every corner of Simon\u2019s life: a trusted band member, a tenuous new love interest, a resentful ex, and the self he\u2019s supposedly left behind. Narcissistic, insecure, and consummately relatable, Simon is the anti-hero of his own life\u2014trying to want to be better; hoping that\u2019s enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EXCERPT: ONE<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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The stalker was literally the only one of Simon\u2019s fans he never thought about sleeping with. No, not literally<\/em>. His little sister Franzi was always getting on his case about that. You\u2019re not literally <\/em>dying. Like she\u2019d know. But anyway. Obviously, some of his fans were ugly, some were men, some were too young\u2014pedophile-bait rather than jailbait\u2014and there were the girls who spent his whole show making out with their greasy boyfriends without ever looking up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not the stalker. She<\/em> wasn\u2019t even bad looking. Not that his standards were very high, which worried him since his therapist acted like he was some sex addict with zero ability to commit. The stalker never even glanced at her phone while he was playing. He didn\u2019t mean to look, but there was something magnetic about the intensity of her gaze. As bad as he felt when a woman didn\u2019t <\/em>show interest, this was worse. His drummer Micha had been the first to call the short brunette with awful taste in lipstick and an endless array of band shirts \u201cthe stalker,\u201d even though only Simon felt threatened by her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She hung around before and after shows. Venue managers made nudge-nudge references like she was some exotic pet Simon kept, and that was probably what she wanted, having her name linked to his as often as possible. As if they even used her name. It was something ordinary like Julia, but she always acted like Simon should know who she was. And he did, some little warning light flashing when he saw her maneuvering through the crowd toward him: Watch out, stalker!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was this maneuvering and positioning of herself that put him off, even more than her postcards piling up in the mail room of Poor Dog Records. He didn\u2019t know her, or if he did, it was only because she\u2019d forced her acquaintance on him. He assumed she lived in Berlin since she\u2019d made every show in town since their first album came out. She sometimes turned up in nearby cities and had once even accosted him in Munich with a story about visiting relatives. It creeped him out to think of her traveling all that way for him. With someone else, that amount of devotion would\u2019ve stroked his volatile ego enough for a positive response, but seeing her stupid knowing smile in the front row that night had almost cost him his rhythm. What gave her the right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Micha laughed himself silly at the slightest hint that Simon was afraid of her, and now Tanja had gotten wind of it. She played bass, and teased Simon and anyone she could get her hands on with the mercilessness of an older sibling. Micha had pointed out that, in addition to her obvious talent, Tanja offered certain demographic benefits. Tom, their first bassist, had quit before they recorded anything after a coke-fueled fight over his girlfriend, and Simon had gone on to have a crushing relationship and even more crushing breakup with the willowy blonde who\u2019d replaced him. Nadine had left the band when they\u2019d been just popular enough for people to notice. Since Tanja wasn\u2019t into men, Simon couldn\u2019t start anything with her. She smoked like a chimney but didn\u2019t touch drugs. She was a godsend. The other advantage was her ruthless careerism. Despite the tough, sarcastic impression she made, or perhaps because of it, she\u2019d soon coerced and charmed the band onto a bigger label.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t plan on dying young,\u201d she\u2019d said. \u201cI need something in the bank for when I\u2019m an old hag.\u201d She worked at a temping agency doing everything from data entry to dishes, but had only the usual Berlin savings account, a shoebox full of change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen <\/em>you\u2019re an old hag?\u201d Micha had asked. They\u2019d gotten close enough to be mean to each other almost right away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simon liked Tanja, which Dr. Froheifer said was a healthy development in his relationship to women. Of course, he didn\u2019t buy into everything she said. It had taken him a few sessions to notice she had a doctorate in literature, not psychology, but that was what you got for picking your therapist based solely on proximity to your apartment. Between touring, recording and making overpriced lattes at his day job, he didn\u2019t see her that often. He should\u2019ve had the stalker analyze him. She got more face time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mostly, though, he went back and forth between worrying that what Dr. F said was true and he\u2019d never be cured, and coming up with reasons why it couldn\u2019t be. Like the sex thing. He didn\u2019t actually have sex that often. In fact, he never did except after a show. That averaged out to less than with Nadine, though they\u2019d had their ups and downs, and not just in bed. Right now, he happened to be single, which meant he had to divide a perfectly normal amount of sex among different women. He also happened to be incapable of picking up anyone outside of a concert venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was another of Dr. F\u2019s suggestions: meeting someone \u201cthe normal way.\u201d He\u2019d tried saying it was<\/em> normal to meet potential partners at work, but she\u2019d made it into this whole power thing. In actual fact, it was just easier. On his days offstage, he made good coffee and bad small talk if he had a shift at Caf\u00e9 Astral, read or listened to music in Volkspark Friedrichshain if he didn\u2019t. A beer with Micha and Tanja was a big night out for him. And when he was himself, Simon Kemper without a guitar or mic, surprise, surprise, women didn\u2019t throw themselves at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, he got occasional darting glances. But they always seemed to be asking how far gone he was, whether the downcast eyes and five o\u2019clock-yesterday shadow were intriguing or signs of unemployment, addiction, a life of crime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now that Hare vs. Hedgehog was playing bigger venues, people sometimes came up to ask if it was really him. But instead of leading to new love interests, his minor celebrity status only created more distance. He felt slow and clumsy in the harsh light of day, and never managed to say anything clever. They probably thought he wanted to be left alone. He did and didn\u2019t. They never even asked for autographs, just identified him and drifted away to tell their many loved ones about the slightly famous misanthrope they\u2019d run into. The anecdote would be more interesting than the actual encounter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was different at a show. Beforehand, they\u2019d sidle up with breathy compliments and talk of great parties later. He didn\u2019t party much anymore, or at all, really, but admitting that made him feel old. The beauty of these pre-show invitations was the idea that there was some cachet in being seen with him. He loved to play the person they saw him as.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterward, he\u2019d scribble signatures on tote bags, t-shirts and skin, and get photographed with countless devices and overheated fans whose heartrate tripled when he put an arm around them. It was easier when you knew you were wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He specialized in the very bold and very timid. When he was exhausted, and he almost always was, he liked athletic girls with taut ponytails, fierce smiles and more self-assurance than he\u2019d had on the best days of his life. When he had the energy, though, he chatted up the skittish ones who stammered in search of replies and gulped when he touched their arms. It felt like charity, bestowing his favor upon those too meek to demand it. But in his heart of losery hearts, he knew he had more in common with these helpless wallflowers who\u2019d never know they were attractive, not even when they were in bed together, not even when they did nervous, breath-holding imitations of sleep as he whispered, \u201cYou\u2019re beautiful,\u201d as hopefully and hopelessly as if he were talking to himself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stalker was neither of these types. She put a steady arm around his waist when she demanded a picture, and acted like she\u2019d known him before he was famous\u2014if you wanted to call it that. In a way, she had, since she\u2019d been at their first show after their first album came out, but that wasn\u2019t the same. She only knew concert-him, which\u2014even if he liked this persona better than his actual personality\u2014wasn\u2019t the real him. And what was she to him? Her face had the impersonal familiarity of a pop-art celebrity, Mao Zedong or Marilyn Monroe. He didn\u2019t feel like he\u2019d always known her, but like he\u2019d always known what she was: a standard feature of his surroundings, like the sticky bars and foul, graffitied bathrooms of clubs\u2014unpleasant, but expected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It remained unclear whether she was trying to flirt, or so deluded she thought they were friends. Once she hung around so long a bartender told her how talented her \u201cboyfriend\u201d was. Simon said, \u201cI don\u2019t even know her,\u201d but she laughed like it was an inside joke. Being rude to her might backfire since she posted on their website several times a day and was probably all over whatever social network could most effectively spread the word that he was an asshole. The only thing he could think to do was leave with the nearest fan. If the stalker was disappointed, she never let on.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Originally from Virginia, Kat Hausler<\/strong> is a graduate of New York University and holds an M.F.A. in Fiction from Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she was the recipient of a Baumeister Fellowship. She is the author of Retrograde <\/em>and What I Know About July<\/em>, as well as many shorter pieces. Her work has appeared in Hawaii Pacific Review, 34th Parallel, Inkspill Magazine, The Sunlight Press, The Dalloway, Rozlyn Press, Porridge Magazine, LitReactor, BlazeVOX, failbetter, Rathalla Review<\/em> and The Airgonaut<\/em>, among others. She lives in Berlin and is also a translator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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