Concrete Fever

a novel

On the night he decides to jump off his Upper West Side rooftop, a prep school teen encounters a lost girl dancing on the ledge. They split cigarettes, spill secrets, and hatch an unexpected plan: to play out a romantic relationship over the course of one night, and discover whether magic can truly exist. As the game propels them through scattered haunts of the city, the line that separates fantasy from reality blurs, leading each to reconsider what is real, what is illusion, and whether the dawn will bring with it a new beginning or a violent end.

In his triumphant debut novel, newcomer Nathaniel Kressen weaves a real-time psychological love story, introducing two unforgettable characters searching for meaning in post-9/11 New York City.

-- Published by Second Skin Books, 2013.

The Rumpus: 
"When I first saw Concrete Fever on the front table of a local bookstore, I knew it was something special. With its colorfully-splashed, slightly-ribbed cover, French flaps, and interior illustrations, Nathaniel Kressen's debut novel stood out among the sea of many new releases. [But] Concrete Fever is more than just a well-crafted package. It is the expertly-paced story of Jumper, a young man in distress looking to end his life, and Gypsy, a free-spirited young woman hoping to convince him otherwise. Kressen, a playwright, screenwriter, and a graduate of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, brings to his fiction a love of acting, a knowledge of stagework, and a desire to tell stories without waiting for permission."

Vol. 1 Brooklyn: 
"Buying a book is an experience from the moment you walk in the book store to the time you miss a subway stop because you can't put it down. Nathaniel Kressen considered this experience in creating Concrete Fever. Not only did he compose an exciting story, but he took intricate care in printing the physical product."