Behind closed doors, the paths of an improbable cast of tenants -- a seductive perfume heiress; a crabby, misunderstood actor; a preternaturally sharp-sighted priest -- tangle and cross, while a perilous love triangle builds around three characters: James Branch, a shy young accountant with an unusual love for the Preemption's antique elevator, and a strange destiny; Patrick Rigg, a Wall Street lothario who soothes his pain by seducing beautiful women, carrying a gun, and attending the nightly sermons of a foreboding priest; and Rally McWilliams, a fetching, hopeful young writer who roams the city at night, searching for the soulmate she believes in but can't find.

Charged with joy and a deadly sense of humor, Kissing in Manhattan is a daring new writer's vision of a world where men and women, good and evil, love and sex, meet, battle, and embrace on every street corner.

"Schickler has a wild, out-of-left-field dramatic imagination that's really fresh. The way his characters take you, as well as one another, by surprise is terrific fun."
   NEW YORK MAGAZINE

"Like figures in a strange, spiky, urban frieze, the characters of Schickler's striking debut novel-in-stories pose, strut and cross paths...