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"Schwartzman delivers in his quirky debut...This arrives right on time."

Publishers Weekly

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"...searching, insightful and often moving collection of tangential connections and disconnections that open out onto larger human and societal dilemmas." — 433 â€‹

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"Schwartzman reminds readers how swiftly strangers can become familiar and reveals the illusions behind human kinship." — Narratively

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"Big Ideas in Bite-Sized Essays." — River Teeth

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"No One You Know is about a difference in narratives: the gaps in who we are, who we think we are, and who others think we are." — St. Louis Magazine

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Other interviews & reviews

 

Podmissum (audio!)


Whale Road Review

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The Breads

 

Electric Literature
 

Fevers of the Mind

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12/20 Question Series

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Snowflakes in a Blizzard

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Amazon / Goodreads

During a lonely and difficult year, author Jason Schwartzman began allowing regular, everyday interactions with strangers to escalate. In NO ONE YOU KNOW, Schwartzman compiles dozens of these encounters and deftly reveals the kinship he finds there, ultimately reconsidering what it means to know someone. From taxi dispatchers to aquarium attendants, drifters to neighbors, exes to siblings, Schwartzman captures the space between people, meticulously distilling the turning point when strangers become intimates. Heartbreaking, insightful, and often profoundly funny, NO ONE YOU KNOW revels in connections, examining how we make ourselves known. A rich and beautiful debut.

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Order via Outpost19, B&N, or Bookshop, or Amazon.

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"...sharply observational, atmospheric, with a clever surprise on every page."
Chloe Caldwell, author of I'll Tell You In Person

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"...reminds us of the power and beauty of random encounters with strangers." 

Noah Rosenberg, Founder of Narratively

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"...reads like a collection of polaroids. Like a stranger’s photo album you found at a thrift store..."
Aaron Burch, Founding Editor of Hobart

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"In the great tradition of wayward oral historians..."

Geoffrey Gray, bestselling author of Skyjack: the Hunt for D. B. Cooper

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"...dense with insight and sparkling with humor, NO ONE YOU KNOW is a one-of-a-kind book that will stay with me for years to come."
Lucy Tan, author of What We Were Promised

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"Schwartzman is an interlocutor, a witness, an agitator...with the moral zip of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the sharp compassion of Lydia Davis..."

Amanda Goldblatt, author of Hard Mouth


"...deep and clear, inquisitive and humble..."
Vidyan Ravinthiran, author of The Million-Petalled Flower of Being Here

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"I ordered this thinking it was the memoir of the actor in all the Wes Anderson movies, but it's NOT AT ALL. Turned out I'd gotten a book of short stories about a different Jason Schwartzman's encounters with random strangers, and I was surprised to find that I loved it." 

random Goodreads reviewer

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