Lurid & Cute (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781250081667)

"The narrator of Lurid & Cute] may be Thirlwell's best creation yet."--Andrew Ervin, The New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)

"Lurid & Cute is a simple story of mayhem and ennui, almost a caper, but told with such satisfying ironies and verbal dexterity that everything is Technicolor again. So alive, so inventive, so very good."--Joshua Ferris

Lurid & Cute takes place in the suburbs of a giant city, where our narrator lives at home with his parents, together with his wife and dog. He has had a good education and, until recently, a good job. But then the lurid overtakes him--and whether this transformation is caused by our hero's present unemployment, or his feelings for a girl who is not his wife, or the return of his old friend Hiro, it's hard to say. What's definite is that it sets off a chain of events that feels, to those inside it, narcotic and neurotic, like one long and terrible descent--complete with lies, deceit, and chicanery: one orgy, one brothel, and a series of firearms disputes.

About the Author
Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. He is the author of the novels Politics and The Escape; the novella Kapow!; a project about international novels, The Delighted States, which won a Somerset Maugham Award; and of a compendium of translations edited for McSweeney's. He has twice been selected as one of Granta's Best Young Novelists. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He lives in London.