Fiction. VICTIMS is a novel about the final days of a religious cult, The Overcomers, a small group of lost souls guided by the teachings of a charismatic leader, Martin Jones. Based on extensive research into the rhetoric of religious cults, VICTIMS is a novel of ideas. Twenty-three year-old author Travis Jeppesen uses an episodic narrative, an elegantly direct style and a quirky, sympathetic group of characters to ponder a question raised by Jones' teachings: If friendship and love are just systems to instill comfort in our lives, are all human interactions acts of manipulation? "VICTIMS may be the most exciting first novel I've read in a decade or more. This is a brilliant, haunting, and strangest of all, very funny novel"-Dennis Cooper, author of Frisk.

Author City: Berlin GER

Travis Jeppesen (born September 4, 1979 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida) is an American novelist, poet, and art critic. He grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina and moved to New York City at the age of 17. He received his B.A. from Eugene Lang College, New School for Social Research (now The New School), where he studied literature and philosophy. Among his professors at the New School were the philosopher Paul Edwards and writers Lynda Schor and Sekou Sundiata. He later studied literary translation at the University of Paris III: Sorbonne Nouvelle and art history at the Open University. Bruce Benderson became his mentor. In 2001, Jeppesen moved to Europe. He currently divides his time between Berlin and Prague, where he edits the literary journal BLATT. Jeppesen's first novel, VICTIMS, was selected by Dennis Cooper to debut his "Little House on the Bowery" series for Akashic Books in 2003. POEMS I WROTE WHILE WATCHING TV, a collaboration with painter Jeremiah Palecek, was published by BLATT Books in 2006. The next year, Twisted Spoon Press published Jeppesen's novel, WOLF AT THE DOOR. He is also the author of DISORIENTATIONS: ART ON THE MARGINS OF THE CONTEMPORARY and a second poetry collection, DICKLUNG & OTHERS.