Madison Newbound

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 GreenwellElsa 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

A smart, savage and hilarious debut exploring love, sexuality, purpose – and the delicious absurdities of online life Elsa is struggling. Her formative, exhilarating relationship – with an older couple – has abruptly ended, leaving her depressed and directionless in her childhood bedroom. 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, the actor arrives in her hometown, with an entourage of fellow actors, writers, and directors, for the annual theatre festival. When she is hired at the one upscale restaurant in town, Elsa finds herself thrown into in contact with the actor and his circle. 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 end of her last relationship, and the patterns that may be playing out once again. Unflinchingly sharp and funny, Misrecognition is an unforgettable debut novel about the internet, post-postmodern adulthood and queer identity.