A modern literary noir in the tradition of Bret Easton Ellis for fans of A Touch of Jen by Beth Morgan, the LA stories of Emma Cline, and Uncut Gems.
CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STRANGERS
by Krista Diamond
Simon & Schuster, Fall 2026
(via Sterling Lord Literistic)
CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STRANGERS follows a Las Vegas wildlife photographer who, while moving to Los Angeles to become a paparazzo, loses his relationships, his morals, and eventually his tether to reality.
A Los Vegan itching for LA, Ben is an amateur wild-life photographer and busser in a diner where tourists come to recreate a movie scene starring Jack Whitlock, “the last real movie star.” He meets a man who promises money as a paparazzo, which he likens to wildlife photography, inciting Ben to move to LA. The job is a thrill; high that he chases to increasingly damaging ends.
A year and a half later, Ben—broke, single, and receiving increasingly credible death threats from a pop star’s stans—is desperate for a win. And when scandalous photos of Jack Whitlock leak, and Ben becomes obsessed with being the first photographer to break new photos of Jack. He follows leads through the absurd horrors of celebrity LA, dodging close encounters with fans, weaving his way back to Las Vegas and the desert of his redemption or demise.
Krista Diamond is a Black Mountain Institute PhD fellow in creative writing at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Her writing has been supported by Bread Loaf, Tin House, the Nevada Arts Council, and has appeared in The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, Slate, Longreads, Hazlitt, Catapult, Joyland, and elsewhere. The opening of CLOSE RELATIONSHIPS WITH STRANGERS was longlisted for both the First Pages Prize and the Stockholm Writers Festival First Pages Prize.
Bereft after the death of his ailing wife, a retired professor has resumed his life’s work—a book that will stand as a towering cathedral to Michel de Montaigne, reframing the inventor of the essay for the modern age. The challenge is the litany of intrusions that bar his way—from memories of his past to the nattering of smartphones to his son’s relentless desire to make an electronic dance album.
By encouraging massive accumulations of debt from its underclass, a single corporation, Caerus, controls all aspects of society. 
Organisé par la Royal Society of Literature et l’Institut français du Royaume-Uni à Londres, en collaboration avec le ministère de la Culture en France et le Department for Culture, Media and Sport au Royaume-Uni, l’Ambassade de France au Royaume-Uni et l’Ambassade du Royaume-Uni en France, le prix de l’Entente Littéraire a été remis à Londres mercredi 4 décembre lors d’une cérémonie à la Résidence de France à laquelle ont assisté la reine Camilla et Brigitte Macron.