Outsider

No one knows for sure what possessed Henry Darger, a reclusive, weather obsessed hospital janitor to create his 15,000 page illustrated opus, but when The American Museum of Folk Art exhibits their collection of his strange and compelling murals, thousands of people come to share and appreciate his twisted visions of society gone horribly amuck. Yet, at one time Darger's work was known to only one man, Nathan Lerner, his landlord and unwilling executor. How Lerner discovered Darger's Realms of the Unreal, and brought it to the world's attention is the source for this compelling fictional meditation on the mysterious forces of creative energy we all share and the dark secret that Darger hid from the world.

Grief over the death of his twelve-year-old daughter stalls Nathan Learner. having little emotional energy for his wife, and barely able to maintain his apartment building across the street, Nate just gets by. Somehow, he manages to help Herman Viereck into a cab to the Little Sisters to live out his final days. Left to dispose of Herman's goods in the vacated apartment, Nate discovers a pack rat's trash or treasure? Balls of string, small to gargantuan, little identical blue bottles, retrieved from the trash and meticulously labeled with the place and date found, and other odd collections give a clue to a mind with some method. But when he opens one volume of Herman's 15,847-page, hand-typed, richly illustrated story of the Vivian Girls, Nate realizes what a trove has fallen into his hands. As he brings this outsider's drawings to eyes of Chicago's art world, Nate feels compelled to learn what created the creator. Who was Herman Viereck? What upbringing influenced his choice of subjects? What drove him to draw those always cheerful little girls surrounded by death, destruction, and terror? In Outsider, Nathan Learner, blocked as an artist, confronts death on several levels: his daughter's, the near-death of his wife, and others. He begins to move forward with his own life while he investigates the life of Herman Viereck, his destitute, reclusive tenant. He discovers secrets he never expected and begins to make room for his own creative muse.

STEPHEN TOBIAS was born in New York City and grew up on the lower east side of Manhattan where he roller skated in Washington Square and attended Seward Park High School, the Alma Mater of Zero Mostel and Tony Curtis. Destined at an early age for a literary life, Tobias instead found himself in medical school and, after graduating, spent many productive years as a family practice physician in Tacoma, Washington, where he was known for his compelling and narrative-based histories and physicals. Nearing retirement, he once again began writing fiction, his work colored by the many fascinating and evocative individuals he met during his long career.