The Ogre Life (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9789362694867)

Simon Lesser is a man at a crossroads - seated in the kitchen of his Brooklyn apartment with a corpse lying on the floor next to him, typing furiously on his laptop. As he tries to make sense of the life that brought him to this point, he's convinced that everyone and everything is overwhelmed by chaos. With that thought in mind, he tells a story he wishes to strip of the trappings and art of storytelling and relate the cold facts of its random absurdity in a series of non-linear events. He traces his life as a secret, fetishistic enthusiast for female bodybuilders (called a "Schmoe"), then as a bodybuilding competitor himself, his marriage to German competitive bodybuilder Martina and his love affair with world class professional bodybuilder Erika Verletzen, an impassioned, indomitable lunatic. Erika brings WWFP Pro Jurg Betrug into the mix. Jurg, a menacing gangster of the German criminal "milieu," has plans for all involved. But what about the corpse on the floor? Just what will Simon do with the body and with himself? Meanwhile, time is ticking away - and the corpse on the floor is beginning to stink!