Writers on Record

Kim Brooks is the personal essays editor at Salon. Kim's stories have appeared in Glimmer Train, One Story, Five Chapters and other journals and her essays have appeared in Salon, New York Magazine, and Buzzfeed.  Her first novel, The Houseguest, was published in 2016 by Counterpoint Press.  The Houseguest is a novel that starts in the summer of 1941 and follows Abe Auer, a Russian immigrant and small-town junkyard owner, who has become disenchanted with his life. So when his friend Max Hoffman, a local rabbi with a dark past, asks Abe to take in a European refugee, he agrees, unaware that the woman coming to live with him is a volatile and alluring actress named Ana Beidler.  Set on the eve of America's involvement in World War II, The Houseguest examines a little-known aspect of the war and highlights the network of organizations seeking to help Jews abroad, just as masses of people seeking to escape Europe are turned away from American