"Burning Girl"
Ben Neihart grew up in Florida and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He got his MA from Johns Hopkins University in 1994. He is the author of the novels “Hey Joe” (Mass Market) and “Burning Girl” (Morrow, William & Co.) and some of his stories have appeared in The New Yorker.
In “Burning Girl” Ben Neihart’s cast of late teens and 20somethings is set against a backdrop of college life in the late 1990s. Here he develops a thriller-horror story that includes characters with mysterious pasts, flickering security lights, junkie apparitions and, of course, sex.
Compelling…a graceful novel. Neihart has a gift for conjuring the wide-eyed rush of youth and its sense of endless possibilities. –Seattle Times
…The truly interesting part of Drew’s [the main character] struggle…is how to answer the unexplainable, but inescapable, demands of love. –The New York Times Book Review
Listen now to this recording of Ben Neihart reading from “Burning Girl,” recorded live at KGB Bar in New York City.
A match made on Craigslist adult services 
Can’t see the forest for the wood 
The things I carry 
When I lost the ability to type 
Pop art, the beaded edition 
The beautiful banality of high school 
The unemployed meet MacArthur’s tanks 
Demi’s last night out 
One day you’re in 
Pitch and catch 
