A smart, savage and hilarious debut exploring love, sexuality, purpose – and the delicious absurdities of online life

‘For fans of Patricia Lockwood and Alexandra Tanner … A tale of internet longing and obsession that leads to self-discovery’ OurCulture

‘Fresh and bold. I was mesmerised’ Julia May Jonas

‘A brave and blazingly smart debut’ Garth Greenwell

Elsa is struggling. The relationship that has consumed her twenties is over and now she’s working as a hostess in the small town where she grew up. Her one outlet is the internet: and she’s soon racking up hours of screentime in her childhood bedroom, falling down rabbit holes that promise a brighter, tidier, better future.

There’s one particular object of her obsession: an up-and-coming actor who starts to occupy her every thought. When the actor arrives in Elsa’s hometown, she finds her virtual and actual realities colliding. But as Elsa vies to infiltrate the young man’s circle, she finds a new and very real connection forming with one of his queer friends, forcing her to rethink her own identity and desires.

‘Casts a spell in coolly detached prose, plunging us into the membrane between the social and the parasocial. I was blown away’ Antoine Wilson

‘Enthralling, astonishingly assured … At once familiar and estranging’ Sarah Blakley-Cartwright