Austin's allure and its explosive growth are at the center of the pointed and funny stories in My Beautiful City Austin, David Heymann's first book of fiction. The narrator, a young architect starting his own practice, struggles to understand why his clients want what they want — a retiring couple needs an immense home in the middle of nature, a progressive couple wants a regressive house, a young family intends to build a castle — and why they want those things here. He fails repeatedly to dissuade them from their bad decisions. Author Stephen Harrigan (The Gates of the Alamo) describes My Beautiful City Austin as an "opinionated, observant, and unexpected little book. The architectural eye that David Heymann trains on Austin and its landscape provides a sharp new view of a beloved city and its vulnerable soul."