Adam Thirlwell

Short-listed for the Goldsmiths PrizeFinalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction A wild story of female friendship, language, and power, from France to colonial America to the moon, from 1775 to this very moment: a historical novel like no other. It's the eighteenth century, and Celine is in trouble. Her husband is mostly absent. Her parents are elsewhere. And meanwhile men are inventing stories about her--about her affairs, her sexuality, her orgies and addictions. All these stories are lies, but the public loves them and spreads them like a virus. Celine can only watch as her name becomes a symbol for everything rotten in society. This is a world of decadence and saturation, of lavish parties and private salons, of tulle and satin and sex and violence. It's also one ruled by men--high on colonial genocide, natural destruction, crimes against women, and, above all, language. To survive, Celine and her friends must band together in search of justice, truth, and beauty. Fantastical, funny, and blindingly bright, Adam Thirlwell's The Future Future follows one woman on an urgently contemporary quest to clear her name and change the world.

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2023 GOLDSMITHS PRIZE*It's the eighteenth-century and Celine is in trouble'A terrific novel'FINANCIAL TIMES'A radically beautiful new novel'SHEILA HETI, author of Pure ColourParis, 1775: Celine's husband is mostly absent. Her parents are elsewhere. Meanwhile men are inventing stories about her - about her affairs, her sexuality, and addictions... All these stories are lies, but the public loves them - spreading them like a virus. Celine can only watch as her name becomes a symbol for everything rotten in this society ruled by men high on colonial genocide, natural destruction, and crimes against women. To survive, Celine and her friends must band together in search of justice, truth and beauty. Fantastical, funny and blindingly bright, The Future Future follows one woman on an urgently contemporary quest to clear her name and change the world.

"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.

Tells a delirious tale of backchat and low tricks, all of which begin when our hero wakes beside a woman who is bleeding, unconscious and not, unfortunately, his wife... And then, of course, events get very much worse.

'The more I knew of Haffner, ' writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.' In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife. But really he is trying to escape: from his family, his lovers, his history, his entire Haffnerian condition. For Haffner is 78. Haffner, in other words, is too old to be grown up.

'The more I knew of Haffner,' writes Adam Thirlwell in The Escape, 'the more real he became, this was true. And, simultaneously, Haffner disappeared.'In a forgotten spa town snug in the Alps, at the end of the twentieth century, Haffner is seeking a cure, more women, and a villa that belonged to his late wife.

Politics is about: a) a threesome; b) politicsMoshe loves Nana. But love can be difficult -- especially if you want to be kind. And Moshe and Nana want to be kind to someone else. They want to be kind to their best friend, Anjali. Politics explores crucial problems of sexual etiquette. What should the sleeping arrangements be in a m nage- -trois? Is it polite to read while two people have sex beside you? Is it permissible to be jealous?

This debut novel is not about politics. It is a comedy about everything else. Thirlwell explores crucial domestic problems of sexual etiquette. He also tells the story of a father and daughter.