The funny propulsive new novel about hating your friends hating what they bring out in you
hating how you pander to them the perfect satirical summer read for fans of Emma Cline Curtis
Sittenfeld and Ottessa Moshfegh. A LitHub most anticipated book of 2025 ' Exceptionally
funny and entertaining ' Katy Hessel bestselling author of The Story of Art Without Men 'A
gorgeous book on being a hater and I inhaled this in one sitting' Stylist Years after
escaping her unbearable artworld friends in New York for a new life in London an unnamed
writer finds herself once more at their dinner table for a single hideous evening. It's the
day after the funeral of their mutual friend a failed actress and - Eugene and Nicole an
artist-curator couple - are hosting a dinner party. If the narrator once loved and admired the
couple and their important friends she now despises them all. Most of all however she
despises herself for being lured back to this cavernous apartment to this hollow bourgeois
social set for a dinner party that isn't even being thrown in their deceased friend's honour
but in the honour of an up-and-coming actress who is by now several hours late. As the guests
sip at their drinks and await the actress's arrival the narrator from her vantage point in
the corner seat of a white sofa entertains herself - and us - with a silent tender merciless
takedown. A satire about friendship capitalism culture and art Happiness and Love is the
razor-sharp new novel from an exciting literary voice. 'Bracing and funny and fiercely
clever' Orlando Whitfield Nero-award listed author of All that Glitters 'An ecstatic
performance of heightened perception' Chris Kraus bestselling author of I Love Dick
'Zeitgeist and timeless cynical but not soulless. Fabulous!' Melissa Broder author of Milk
Fed and The Pisces
