The Joker

Love, madness, and pandemic, The Joker is a dramatic and chilling story of surviving the Avian Flu in today's New York City. Eva, a doctor, and Greg, an aspiring musician, weather the realities of young adulthood: reconciling the dreams and responsibilities of love, work and parenthood -- until a deadly pandemic of Avian Flu puts their humanity to test. Two psychiatrists, a musician, a healer, a crazy nanny and a little boy struggle for survival in a dark, hungry city full of death. Their choices are shaped by horror, love and fate.

“Imagine Oblomov crossed with I am Legend. The Joker grafts the Russian literary tradition of human sympathy with the jarring, graphic momentum of a thriller.” -Sana Krasikov, author of One More Year

“Elena Bruck has Chekhov's eye for detail and knows how to weave a haunting story." -Gregory Colbert, author of Ashes and Snow: A Novel in Letters

“Elena Bruck takes us on a deadly journey through plague-ravaged New York City. This psychologically incisive and medically informed thriller is quite different from any other disaster novel I've read. Bruck builds complex and compelling characters, but still manages to keep you on the edge of your seat. I will never look at Stuyvesant Town the same way again.” - Lisa Cohen, PhD, author of The Handy Psychology Answer Book

“A unique, intelligent and exciting New York novel; the city and people as you might know them, suddenly and in a chillingly real way, turned upside down and all but destroyed. An impressive debut. Who but a practicing psychiatrist could give us such depth of dysfunction?” - Rowan Somerville, author of The End of Sleep, and The Shape of Her