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 work of contemporary literary
fiction and a 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 this brilliant social satire reveals 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
