LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION - A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious original and highly
disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire." --Giles Harvey The New York Times Magazine From
the Whiting and O. Henry-winning author of Private Citizens ("the first great millennial novel
" New York Magazine) an electrifying novel-in-stories that follows a cast of intricately
linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos. Sharply
observant and outrageously funny Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems
of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises
of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex relationships identity and the
internet. In "The Feminist " a young man's passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he
realizes over thirty lonely years that it isn't getting him laid. A young woman's unrequited
crush in "Pics" spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense
of self. And in "Ahegao or The Ballad of Sexual Repression " a shy late bloomer's flailing
efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in
each other's dating apps and social media feeds or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms they
reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection. These brilliant satires
explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the
manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable Rejection is a stunning mosaic
that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers friends society and oneself. "
Rejection is unrelentingly brutal and gut-bustingly funny and spares no one--not you not me.
Tulathimutte is a pervert and a madman and a stone-cold genius." -- Carmen Maria Machado
author of Her Body and Other Parties "One of the foremost fiction writers exploring the subject
of his own generation." --Jia Tolentino The New Yorker
