SKYSCRAPER
Set in modern day Manhattan, Skyscraper is the story of Atticus, a down on his luck architect who stumbles into an S&M bar and meets a young man who changes the direction of his life. What begins as a random pick-up evolves into an intense game of sexual domination as Atticus finds himself wildly invigorated both as a man and an architect.
As his new relationship deepens, his creativity simultaneously catches fire and he lands a prime architectural job at his firm designing a bold new high rise tower.
Soon his two worlds collide as the novel takes a Kafkian turn and the thin line between reality and fantasy, pleasure and pain threatens to explode.
A new edition pre-order now for May 28 2022 from JMS Books with an introduction by Lambda Literary Award winner Jeff Mann. BUY the book here. View the book teaser here.
Reviews and Praise
Skyscraper is a Lambda Literary Award Finalist
"Skyscraper is a little wonder of a book that packs a great deal into a small package, and it will leave you thinking about the relationship between success and failure." Out In Print
"This is a dark jewel of a book, a captivating examination of the relationship between a masochistic artist and a sadistic, forceful muse. The plot’s full of surprises, the characters are compelling, and the spare style is sheer poetry. Skyscraper is one of the most erotic, lyrical novels I’ve ever read."
Jeff Mann, sensualist and winner of the Pauline Réage Novel Award (Salvation) and multiple Lambda Literary Awards (Salvation and A History of Barbed Wire)
"Scott Alexander Hess writes beautifully. His prose is imaginative and refined, always on point for the premise. But I’ve already noted that previously on this blog in my review of The Butcher’s Sons. Kirkus and Rainbow Awards may have given mention to that same book, but it was also one of my Books of the Year in 2015. If you want to read a well written piece of gay fiction, something where you feel the tension and fairly cloak yourself in the atmosphere, the literary eroticism, complete with intriguing characters, then I can highly recommend Skyscraper. 4.5 Stars!" - On Top Down Under
"A tantalizing piece of literary erotica. Well-crafted and beautifully written, Skyscraper evokes a world that is elegant and gritty, while illustrating the compelling links between desire, sex, and creativity." — Joe Okonkwo, author of Jazz Moon
"Skyscraper," is every much the page turner as his previous works, but with more of an everyman protagonist whose drastic changes in behavior and attitude surprise no one more than himself...compelling." Christopher Verleger, Edge Media Network.
"Skyscrapers is a sleek and haunting fantasy held aloft by vivid detail and passion of architecture. The protagonist's masterpiece, as described by Hess, could be of his own work, as well: "All edges and shards incorrectly bold and divinely erratic, obscene and subversive." - Yin Q. BDSM educator/writer
“Scott Hess’s gorgeous prose soars off the page like the symbolic butterflies peppering his latest masterpiece, Skyscraper. Much like Kafka, transformation is at the heart of this breathtaking novel. An unexpected encounter with a young brutish man, whose chiseled body resembles granite, leads to an architect’s artistic and sexual reawakening. As a magnificent new skyscraper takes shape in Atticus’s mind, on paper, and finally in Mexico City, the boundaries between art and sex, love and lust, truth and lies, and dominance and submission begin to collapse around him. Hess’s deeply emotional narrative, poetic phrases, and surreal flourishes broaden the erotica genre, tantalizing readers while reaching in to twist their heart.” - Amy Dupcak, author of Dust, Short Stories
“The Fountainhead meets an all-male version of Fifty Shades of Grey. In Scott Alexander Hess’s Skyscraper, the tension builds higher and higher, until the reader finally gets a clear view of what’s actually happening behind the story’s façade, and how the whole thing might come crashing down in an instant. A hot, thrilling read.” - Wayne Hoffman, author of An Older Man and Hard