Lurid & Cute

“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.