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Table of Contents
About The Book
For fans of Rachel Cusk and Patricia Lockwood, an unflinchingly sharp and funny debut novel about the internet, post-postmodern adulthood, and queer identity.
Elsa is struggling. Her formative, exhilarating relationship—with a couple—has abruptly ended, leaving her depressed and directionless in her childhood bedroom. The man and the woman were her bosses, lovers, and cultural guideposts. In the relationship’s wake, Elsa scrolls aimlessly through the internet in search of meaning.
Faithfully, her screen provides a new obsession: a charismatic young actor whose latest feature is a gay love story that illuminates Elsa’s crisis. And then, as if she had conjured him, Elsa sees the actor in the flesh; he and an entourage of actors, writers, and directors have descended upon her hometown for the annual theater festival. When she is hired as a hostess at the one upscale restaurant in town, Elsa finds herself in frequent contact with the actor and his collaborators. But her obsession shifts from the actor to his frequent dinner companion—an alluring, androgynous person called Sam. As this confusing connection develops, Elsa is forced to grapple with her sexuality, the uncomfortable truths about the dramatic end of her last relationship, and the patterns that may be playing out once again.
Elsa is struggling. Her formative, exhilarating relationship—with a couple—has abruptly ended, leaving her depressed and directionless in her childhood bedroom. The man and the woman were her bosses, lovers, and cultural guideposts. In the relationship’s wake, Elsa scrolls aimlessly through the internet in search of meaning.
Faithfully, her screen provides a new obsession: a charismatic young actor whose latest feature is a gay love story that illuminates Elsa’s crisis. And then, as if she had conjured him, Elsa sees the actor in the flesh; he and an entourage of actors, writers, and directors have descended upon her hometown for the annual theater festival. When she is hired as a hostess at the one upscale restaurant in town, Elsa finds herself in frequent contact with the actor and his collaborators. But her obsession shifts from the actor to his frequent dinner companion—an alluring, androgynous person called Sam. As this confusing connection develops, Elsa is forced to grapple with her sexuality, the uncomfortable truths about the dramatic end of her last relationship, and the patterns that may be playing out once again.
About The Author
Photograph © Anjelica Jardiel
Madison Newbound is a writer and server living in Brooklyn. Misrecognition is her first novel.
Product Details
- Publisher: Simon & Schuster (July 2, 2024)
- Length: 272 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668025109
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Raves and Reviews
“A shockingly modern and honest debut about isolation and longing in our age of screens. Newbound’s precise style feels fresh and bold. I was mesmerized.”
–JULIA MAY JONAS, author of Vladimir
“Misrecognition casts a spell in coolly detached prose, brilliantly plunging us into the porous membrane between the social and the parasocial. I was blown away by this singular and mesmerizing debut.”
—ANTOINE WILSON, author of Mouth to Mouth
“An astonishingly assured debut. Every interaction is like a mirage, at once familiar and estranging, and in Newbound’s enthralling novel we are all, every one of us, actors.”
—SARAH BLAKLEY-CARTWRIGHT, author of Alice Sadie Celine
“Numbed by heartbreak, lost in a peculiarly American loneness, the protagonist of Madison Newbound’s haunting novel brings new understandings of identity and sex to old experiences of melancholy and obsession. I’ve never read anything that captures so vividly the distinct texture of desire, at once feverish and vacant, engendered by the infinite scroll of online life. Misrecognition is a brave and blazingly smart debut.”
–GARTH GREENWELL, author of Cleanness
“Sleek and sexy, assured yet searching, Misrecognition so perfectly captures the highs and lows of intimacy in the digital age, the loneliness of always being connected but also the soul-rearranging elation of finding someone who shows you to yourself.”
–MICHELLE HART, author of We Do What We Do In the Dark
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High Resolution Images
- Book Cover Image (jpg): Misrecognition Hardcover 9781668025109
- Author Photo (jpg): Madison Newbound Photograph © Anjelica Jardiel(0.1 MB)
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