‘I Eat Men Like Air’ by Alice Berman is your next Audible obsession
Alice Berman remains a New York City-based author whose Audible Original I Eat Men Like Air continues to find new listeners years after its debut. The fiction writer sold her earlier book Lost Boys and Technicolor Girls to ABC, where it entered development for Freeform with no further public updates since those initial announcements.
Hailing from a political family in Washington, D.C., Berman attended Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania, winning the Gibson Peacock Award for creative nonfiction. After graduation she lived in London and Los Angeles, where she co-founded the app Shopfeed and served as creative director for Pop & Suki.
Today Berman writes from her Tribeca loft. She is a founding board member of the animal advocacy group Creatures Great and Small and serves on the Young Collectors Council Acquisitions Committee at the Guggenheim, the Friends of Blair House, and as a Young Lion Conservator at the New York Public Library. Find her on Instagram.
About I Eat Men Like Air
Can a suspicious suicide be resolved by a well-known podcast reporter trying to pry his way into the closed-door world of the Upper East Side?
As Tyler attempts to find the truth behind Alex Sable’s mysterious, dramatic death, he follows a group of New Yorkers through the events that brought them to a fateful night, searching for the truth.
With the snow falling thick and fast over one of New Hampshire’s Gilded Age Mansions, ten 20-somethings assemble to celebrate an upcoming marriage in a debaucherous weekend that will question loves, cause lies, and change lives irrevocably.
Now bonded together over an event that they can never forget, these young men and women struggle to move forward, and find themselves pushed to breaking point. With these two stories woven as one, we watch Alex Sable’s last year of life unfold before us, one dark moment at a time. The Audible Original first appeared in September 2019; a paperback edition followed from Pegasus Publishers in January 2023.
Print and Digital Editions
The 2023 Pegasus print release expands access beyond the original Audible format. Published January 26, 2023 by Pegasus Publishers in paperback, the edition is available on Amazon and other retailers alongside the audiobook. Readers who prefer holding the physical object now have the same dual-timeline mystery in their hands, while the narrated version keeps its brisk pace for commuters and late-night listeners alike.
Reception and Reader Response
Kirkus called it an intriguing whodunit with richly drawn characters. On Goodreads the community rating sits at 3.29 from 989 ratings as of recent data. Listeners have praised the crisp New York atmosphere and the way the weekend-gone-wrong structure keeps tension high without relying on cheap twists. Some readers note the slower burn of the first act before the weekend sequences take over, yet most agree the character work rewards the patience.
Title Origin and Literary Influences
The title draws from Sylvia Plath’s poem Lady Lazarus. Berman has cited the Harry Potter series and Agatha Christie as key early influences, crediting both for showing how expansive world-building and tight plotting can coexist. The Plath reference signals the book’s interest in performance and survival, themes that surface in Alex Sable’s carefully maintained social circle and the podcast reporter’s own need to perform for an audience.
Similar Reads and Recommendations
Berman highlighted Julie Buntin’s Marlena and the investigative account She Said during her own interview. The dual-timeline mystery structure aligns with contemporary thrillers that alternate between a central incident and its long aftermath. Readers who finish I Eat Men Like Air often move next to Buntin’s portrait of intense female friendship or to true-crime narratives that examine how public stories get shaped after the fact.
We were stoked to sit down with Alice Berman the ambitious writer to talk about her creative journey.
Tell us about your history as a writer. How did you start your journey?
I started by being an avid, almost obsessive reader. I still have trouble putting down a book to go to sleep — I have to actively force myself to! I’ve always loved reading, so it was a natural transition for me.
Who were your early influences?
The Harry Potter books were so important to me when I was younger; I found it extremely inspirational that they were written by a woman, and that they were so imaginative and expansive in terms of the world JK Rowling creates and built.
How was working on I Eat Men Like Air? What did you learn from the experience?
I wrote the first third of the novel when I was working in an office full-time. I would write a scene or two whenever I had the chance, and it became such a lovely journey away from the work at my desk every day. It just emphasized to me how much I needed to be writing full time.
Tell us about your career before you were a writer.
I bounced around through several different industries, but I think the best experience I had was working as an assistant. That was where I learned to creatively problem solve, and really gained the belief that any problem has a solution.
Tell us about your creative process.
I have an idea and start to take notes on it – sometimes it will literally be a line or two in my phone. When it becomes a focus for me, one that I can’t stop thinking about, I know that I’m ready to start writing.
What tips do you have for new writers and screenwriters?
For new writers of any kind: write! Every single day, even if you think it’s not worthwhile or that it will never go anywhere. It is worthwhile. It will go somewhere.
You’re very hands-on with your projects. How hard is it wearing all the hats?
It is hard. I could not have done any of this without the endless, tireless support of my family. Everyone always says “no one will care about your work as much as you do.” That’s wrong: no one will care about your work as much as your family does.
How has your experience outside the creative worlds helped you with your creative work?
Every field I’ve worked in – publishing, interior design, fashion – has had a creative element to it that I was able to expand as I got to be comfortable in the job. I think learning basic skills, like how to run an ad on Instagram or reach out to a stranger for a partnership, absolutely helped in that it made me feel comfortable and confident with my work.
What’s your writing mission? Name the most important thing you want audience members to experience when watching or listening to your movies.
I really want anyone out there who feels alone, or alienated, or misunderstood, to know that they aren’t alone, that their experiences have been shared (in the broadest strokes) by others, and that things can and will change if you decide to make them change.
Can we expect to see any more episodic television from you anytime soon?
Hopefully!
What’s your five-year plan?
If you’d told me five years ago that this was what I would be doing, I definitely would not believe you. I think you have to see the paths that open up for you and walk down them without trying to fit everything into a plan.
What writers should be on our radar?
Agatha Christie! She is world-famous and wildly successful for a reason! Julie Buntin, who wrote the wonderful Marlena. I just finished She Said, and absolutely loved it as well.
