I Make Envy On Your Disco by Eric Schnall

It’s the new millennium and the anxiety of midlife is creeping up on Sam Singer, a thirty-seven-year-old art advisor. Fed up with his partner and his life in New York, Sam flies to Berlin to attend a gallery opening. There he finds a once-divided city facing an identity crisis of its own.

In Berlin the past is everywhere: the graffiti-stained streets, the candlelit cafs and techno clubs, the astonishing mash-up of architecture, monuments, and memorials. A trip that begins in isolation evolves into one of deep connection and possibility. In an intensely concentrated series of days, Sam finds himself awash in the city, stretched in limbo between his own past and future-in nightclubs with Jeremy, a lonely wannabe DJ; navigating a flirtation with Kaspar, an East Berlin artist he meets at a café; and engaged in a budding relationship with Magda, the enigmatic and icy manager of Sam’s hotel, whom Sam finds himself drawn to and determined to thaw.

I Make Envy on Your Disco is at once a tribute to Berlin, a novel of longing and connection, and a coming-of-middle-age story about confronting the person you were and becoming the person you want to be. 
 
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Winner of the Barbara DiBernard Prize in Fiction

"A funny and moving debut."—Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post
 
“A love letter to Berlin, to travel, and to saying yes to life.” - Alan Cumming 
 
"Full of techno, espressos, hot serpentine boys in cafes, well-timed musical cues (from Ace of Base to Edith Piaf), and the occasional tab of ecstasy, it's a comforting, elegantly-written reminder that there's life after twink death." - Raymond Ang, GQ
 
“In Eric Schnall’s fast-paced and funny debut novel, a successful New York art advisor finds himself perpetually discombobulated on a short business trip to Berlin. Moment by moment, we tag along as he continually loses—and eventually recovers—himself in a city that comes as vividly to life as the eclectic cast of characters he meets along the way. I loved this sharply observed and deeply touching book.”—Bill Hayes