THE STALKER

THE STALKER ON SALE NOW

UPCOMING EVENTS!

Patio Reader: Tuesday, July 8, 2025, New York

Author Event: Paula Bomer with Ben Tanzer: Thursday, July 24th, Chicago

“The Stalker is an impeccable character study of the least self-aware man on earth.  This novel is heart-pounding, endlessly entertaining, and in complete touch with humanity. Risky and brilliant, dark as hell and bitingly comic as only the masters can pull off. Wholly satisfying to the final glorious moment.”

—Chelsea Bieker, Author of Madwomen 

“My favorite: the toxic masculinity novel! The most unlikable protagonist in recent memory. I read this book as a fuck you to every guy who looks up to Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. It is haunting, extremely unpleasant, and one of my favorites of the year.”

—Anthony Jeselnik, Comedian and Writer

“A portrait of an empty and hollow-eyed kid whose only gifts are limitless arrogance and an instinct for predation. Reading it made me feel soiled…The Stalker is somehow mirthless and genuinely hilarious at the same time…Paula Bomer stared down the barrel for this one.”

-Jayson Greene, author of UnWorld



About the Book

An Untalented Mr. Ripley, a Dumb American Psycho: A young man combines boundless self-confidence with perpetual failure and ineptitude as he tries to manipulate his way into a better life, preying on women in New York City in the early ’90s.

Robert Doughten Savile, aka “Doughty,” is the son of a once-wealthy, now hard-up family from Darien, Connecticut. Doughty lives in a perpetual cloud of delusion, convinced of his own genius and status. While he has little capacity to accurately assess his own abilities or prospects, he cruises through life on the sheer force of his own sense of entitlement, dropping out of college and landing in the early ’90s in New York City, a place brimming with both prosperity and desperation.

He cons his way from a bed at the YMCA into the posh Soho loft of a middle-aged book editor, while pursuing a young bartender, whom he also abuses and gaslights. He spins elaborate tales about his imaginary high-power job in real estate while, in reality, he passes his days watching comedy specials on VHS, smoking crack in Tompkins Square Park, and engaging in occasional sex work in the restrooms of Grand Central Station. His many failures, however, only serve to sharpen his one true gift: Doughty is a skilled predator, and the damage he inflicts on the women around him is real and remorseless. As shocking as it is illuminating, The Stalker confirms Paula Bomer as a contemporary master of the pitch-black comic novel.

photo by Patricia Aquino