Outsider

Grief over the death of his twelve-year-old daughter stalls Nathan Learner. having little emotional energy for his wife, and barely able to maintain his apartment building across the street, Nate just gets by. Somehow, he manages to help Herman Viereck into a cab to the Little Sisters to live out his final days. Left to dispose of Herman's goods in the vacated apartment, Nate discovers a pack rat's trash or treasure? Balls of string, small to gargantuan, little identical blue bottles, retrieved from the trash and meticulously labeled with the place and date found, and other odd collections give a clue to a mind with some method. But when he opens one volume of Herman's 15,847-page, hand-typed, richly illustrated story of the Vivian Girls, Nate realizes what a trove has fallen into his hands. As he brings this outsider's drawings to eyes of Chicago's art world, Nate feels compelled to learn what created the creator. Who was Herman Viereck? What upbringing influenced his choice of subjects? What drove him to draw those always cheerful little girls surrounded by death, destruction, and terror? In Outsider, Nathan Learner, blocked as an artist, confronts death on several levels: his daughter's, the near-death of his wife, and others. He begins to move forward with his own life while he investigates the life of Herman Viereck, his destitute, reclusive tenant. He discovers secrets he never expected and begins to make room for his own creative muse.