A “vividly chillingly current” ( The Washington Post ) novel by the author of The New Me one
of the boldest voices in American fiction “So searingly precise in [its] ability to capture
a certain moment or experience that you have to stop every few pages to send another perfect
quote to your group chat.”— The New York Times “So funny so smart utterly vicious—just
brilliant.”—Zadie Smith “Butler has crafted a novel in which every character proves to be
completely uniquely crazy. Her perverse sense of humor should be studied and
celebrated.”—David Sedaris Margaret Anne “Moddie” Yance had just returned to her native land
in the Midwestern town of X to mingle with the friends of her youth to get back in touch with
her roots and to recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment
with a man she now believed to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist. So begins
Halle Butler’s sadistically precise and hilarious Banal Nightmare which follows Moddie as she
abruptly ends her long-term relationship and moves back to her hometown throwing herself at
the mercy of her old friends as they all suddenly tipping toward middle age go to parties
size each other up obsess over past slights dream of wild triumphs and indulge in elaborate
revenge fantasies. When her friend Pam invites a mysterious East Coast artist to take up a
winter residency at the local university Moddie has no choice but to confront the demons of
her past and grapple with the reality of what her life has become. As the day of reckoning
approaches friends will become enemies enemies will become mortal enemies and old loyalties
will be tested to their extreme. Banal Nightmare is filled with complicated characters who
will dazzle you in their rendering just as often as they will infuriate you with their
decisions. Halle Butler singularly captures the volatile angry aggrieved surreal and
entirely disorienting atmosphere of the modern era.
