THE DISTRACTIONS

By Liza Monroy

Regalo Press; January 14, 2025

Overview

Solitary tech worker Mischa Osborn is mourning the shelving of her passion project—an artificial intelligence algorithm capable of love—when a chance encounter with a social media celebrity leads her spiraling into an all-consuming obsession. Simultaneously, someone—or something—is watching.

Mischa Osborn spends her days as a ProWatcher—keeping distracted people on task and lonely ones accompanied—from her Brooklyn Megabuilding, while eating PetriMeat Steax and working out with her favorite personal trainer, a straight-talking algorithm named Tory.

Her carefully constructed, isolated existence is suddenly upended by a chance realspace encounter with a HighlightReel celebrity, Nicolás Adán Luchano. On their first date, hiking in Kuulsuits and watching DroneBeez pollinate flowers, Mischa experiences a brief but intense realspace connection.

Mischa takes to relentlessly watching Nic onReel. As Mischa’s ReelWatching spirals into an all-consuming obsession, and even realspace stalking, Mischa takes increasingly desperate measures to be seen and valued, sucking others into her vortex of obsession until she completely loses control.

Meanwhile, someone is equally obsessed with Mischa, tracking her every move and perhaps even influencing her choices.

A tale of how technology enables obsession, envy, and unrelenting comparison, told through an eccentric cast of interconnected characters, The Distractions invites us to reflect on who we are watching, and why.

About the author

Liza Monroy is the author of The Distractions and three previous books. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, O (Oprah Magazine), Poets & Writers, Marie Claire, Longreads, Newsweek, Guernica, Catamaran, Jane, Self, Psychology Today, Jezebel, Publishers Weekly, Poets & Writers, Bust and many other publications and anthologies, including both editions of The New York Times’ Best of Modern Love, Best American Food Writing 2021, Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, Oprah’s Little Book of Calm and Comfort, One Big Happy Family, and Wedding Cake For Breakfast. Learn more here: https://www.lizamonroy.com/

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This book release January 14!

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Praise for THE DISTRACTIONS and Liza Monroy: 

“Genius… this book has its own vocabulary but is also a hilarious and scathing commentary on our own moment, told with intelligence, curiosity, and a sense of humor.”

–Malena Watrous, author of If You Follow Me

“Smart, unexpected, engrossing, and thought-provoking.” 

–Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

“It’s the rare novel that has made me see the world differently.” 

–Elizabeth McKenzie, National Book Award longlisted author of The Portable Veblen and The Dog of the North 

“Liza Monroy has a magical voice, the kind that makes you want to read the next sentence and then the one after that to see what turn her writing will take next. She is observant, funny, and curiously wise about the culture we live and flounder in.” 

—Daphne Merkin, writer and critic for The New Yorker, essayist and novelist

“An all-around expert on romantic love, Liza Monroy delivers these lively, touching essays about love in the depersonalized time of tech. Spanning countries and dates – some more successful than others and all under the watchful eye of her mother, a profiler for the U.S. State Department – Monroy delivers an engaging chronicle for our times.”   

—San Jose Mercury News

“Liza Monroy is a great date — a masterful storyteller, witty, urbane, tender, and hilarious.”

—Dan White, author of  Under The Stars andThe Cactus Eaters

“…it is interesting to watch Monroy learn her lessons, to stop romanticizing her partners or assigning them to neat boxes, to assert boundaries and rules, even if they get broken. When she finally gets her happy ending, it feels earned.”   

—Publishers Weekly