Description
Book Synopsis"I have never been faced with a moral crisis, let alone a matter of life or death."
Peter Simons doesn't spend much time at home in his bachelor apartment. Thanks to his job at a multinational company, he is often flying around the world, enjoying a life of luxurious solitude in five star hotels. So when he returns after being away for nine months and notices a strange smell coming from his neighbour's apartment, he initially tries not to get involved, but when a body is discovered Peter's carefully cultivated detachment begins to crumble. And when new neighbours move into the vacant apartment he gets caught up in a petty dispute that will bring him to the brink of moral ruin.
Bystander is a pitiless, bold work of intense psychological realism narrated by a professionally successful but socially bankrupt anti-hero who expects global connection and local anonymity. It excoriates the contingency of contemporary morality, and, at a time of growing isolation, forces the reader to examine what it means to be a good neighbour.
Trade Review"An enjoyably quirky and biting portrait of personal realpolitik, Bystander offers a credible complement to 'Fight Club' and 'American Psycho,' though one minus the chest-beating postures and litres of shed blood." —Toronto Star
"Steeves is endlessly quotable...but never glib. In Bystander, serious ideas and entertainment value are so intertwined as to be effectively one and the same." —Montreal Gazette
