Sidewalk Dance - by Fletcher Michael

About the Book

Shunning his white-collar pedigree, Fisher moves to New York City, relishing the opportunity to reinvent himself as a doomed playwright. His romantic delusions are quickly punctured by the pregnancy of his would-be muse, Madame Meticulous, the debaucherous tendencies of his altar ego, Partiboy, and the impending destruction of the Hell's Kitchen art gallery where he works, leading him into an abyss of self-doubt, addiction, identity crisis, and isolation.

Book Synopsis

Shunning his white-collar pedigree, Fisher moves to New York City, relishing the opportunity to reinvent himself as a doomed playwright. His romantic delusions are quickly punctured by the pregnancy of his would-be muse, Madame Meticulous, the debaucherous tendencies of his altar ego, Partiboy, and the impending destruction of the Hell's Kitchen art gallery where he works, leading him into an abyss of self-doubt, addiction, identity crisis, and isolation.

Review Quotes

"Sidewalk Dance is a life-affirming, raucous romp through a hyper-contemporary vision of New York City. Fish is a foolish, lost, yet eminently lovable picaro on a quest for meaning that Fletcher Michael comically & gracefully shows us is doomed. Because as Fish (possibly?) learns, maybe the truest thing is to shun laurels & aplomb & rectitude and just BE." -Harold Rogers, author of Tropicáaacute;lia

"Sidewalk Dance follows Fish, a confused young man overly bewitched by the mythology of the New York artist. Determined to become a tortured playwright, Fish doesn't bother to read or attend plays. Instead, he focuses his efforts on looking the part with booze and drugs, and on resisting the gravitational pull of a committed relationship or a respectable career. At the root of Fish's delusion is deeply buried trauma that he's failed to confront. He might make us cringe at times, but we can all relate to Fish's quixotic search, as he tilts at authenticity amidst the city's condemned galleries and dive bars." --Tyler McMahon, author of One Potato

"Rollicking, debaucherous, yet heartfelt, Sidewalk Dance goes all in, a take-no-prisoners bildungsroman that rattles with all the havoc and zeal of being (or at least coming across as) a viable artist in modern New York. Readers shall shimmy." --Jakob Guanzon, National Book Award longlisted author of Abundance

About the Author

Fletcher Michael is a writer and actor based in Brooklyn, New York. He is the founder of Infinite Monkey Theater Company, through which he writes, directs, and produces full-length plays and sketch comedy shows. Sidewalk Dance is his third novel, following Glass Bottle Season (Keylight Books, 2023) and Vulture (Rebel Satori Press, 2022). For more information about past, current, and upcoming projects, check out fletcherisuptosomething.com.