Novels Tepper's debut novel,
Balls, was published in 2012. The book is a dark comedy about Henry Schiller, a 30-year-old piano player and neurotic Jew who lives in Manhattan with his younger, more musically gifted girlfriend Paula. When Henry discovers that he has testicular cancer, it prompts an existential crisis. The book has been praised for capturing the feel of New York City. Tepper started writing it in New Orleans and continued it in Finland, but stated that the book didn't start to take form until he returned to New York. Some of the characters were based on Tepper's real-life family members.
The New York Times wrote, "Despite some early stumbles, 'Ark' is an engaging and entertaining novel, and an insightful take on just how easy it can be to slip from the upper class." It was published in 2020. Tepper's fourth novel,
Cooler Heads, was published in 2024. Set mostly in New York City, it is about the relationship between Paul, a newsletter writer, and Celia, a gifted painter.
Publishers Weekly called
Cooler Heads "devastating" and added that "offering a pitiless dissection of a modern relationship, Tepper shows himself an expert at orchestrating scenes of domestic carnage. This plays out like a hipster Brooklyn version of
Richard Yates's
Revolutionary Road."
The Oracle Club Tepper and artist
Jenna Gribbon founded The Oracle Club in 2011, a members-only literary salon and workspace for artists and writers in
Long Island City, Queens, which closed in 2017.
Music Tepper played
bass in
The Natural History, an indie rock trio formed in New York in 2001, with his brother Max Tepper on lead vocals and guitar. He co-wrote their song "Don’t You Ever", which was covered by
Spoon as "
Don't You Evah" on their 2007 album
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, and was also released as a single/EP on April 8, 2008. The original version by The Natural History was included on the 8-song EP, alongside remixes of the Spoon version by
Ted Leo,
Diplo and
Matthew Dear. Spoon included "Don't You Evah" on
Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon, released by
Matador Records in July 2019. An article Tepper wrote for
Playboy magazine includes a Q & A with Spoon's
Britt Daniel, in which the Tepper brothers and Daniel recount the story behind "Don't You Evah". The Natural History released an EP and two full-length albums and disbanded in 2005. ==Bibliography==