STEFAN MATTESSICH is the author of four works of fiction: Point Guard, a coming-of-age story set on the Northern California coast of Mendocino; East Brother, a comic novel about gentrification and the end of the counterculture in a fictional California beach town; A Precarious Man, a literary novel about life in contemporary neoliberal society; and The Riverbed, about three imaginative young people coming to learn about the darker sides of the suburban dream they call home. The Riverbed is the recipient of a Literary Titan Book Award. He has also published a monograph on the fiction of Thomas Pynchon, called Lines of Flight. He lives in Los Angeles, California.