Violet Rothko and Other Stories by Grabowski, John NEUF 2024

A shy barista dates a quirky customer, until something unexpected upends her world. A waiter dishes on the privileged housewives who pile into his chi-chi restaurant on Tuesday nights. Only the closest few know the true colors of a famous movie star and humanitarian-and they wish they didnt. A group of rootless young people move through days of total nihilism, until one decides being an artists model is the highest calling imaginable. Life appears picture-perfect for two newlyweds-until shes confronted with a revelation that leaves her the choice of ending their marriage or moving forward. These are intimate, sometimes funny, sometimes sad stories that reflect our anxious zeitgeist today, with its divisions in class, culture and attitude.

John Grabowski loves fiction that deals with the vagarious and contradictory nature of human beings. After stints in advertising, public relations, and TV news, he decided he wanted to take some time out to try his hand at writing stories steeped in the zeitgeist of today, stories that are often complex and boast neither heroes nor anti-heroes.



His first novel, Entertaining Welsey Shaw, was praised by Kirkus Reviews for being witty, fast-paced, and "filled with flirtatious banter." A collection of short fiction, Violet Rothko and Other Stories, was released in September 2019. He is currently working on a novel about the dotcom mania in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is married and lives in Northern California.