LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
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.
PRAISE FOR REJECTION
“A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious, original and highly disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire”
“Tulathimutte is unafraid to write the most disturbing, disgusting, and delightfully deranged things [...] a hilariously brazen and existentially unsettling portrait of modern life, love, and identity”
“...a wildly entertaining, occasionally outlandish, and formally inventive satire”
“These stories are, on the whole, uncomfortable because they are cynical and brilliant and painfully honest. Lots of writing is described as “of the moment,” but that truly applies here. These, are stories that reflect what it means to have grown up during the internet age. The characters of most of these stories are Very Online, and a lot of their thoughts and actions reflect that influence. I laughed as much as I cringed.”
“If Tony Tulathimutte’s debut novel, Private Citizens, was, as New York Magazine called it, “the first great millennial novel,” Rejection might well be the last — by virtue of having, by the last page, ruthlessly demolished all received notions of what it might mean for a novel to be great, or to be millennial, or, for that matter, to be a novel at all. I could compare Rejection to the work of Nabokov, in its stylish and blazingly original skewering of convention; or to that of Roth, in the daring with which it plumbs the darkest depths of the human psyche to excavate what is most vulnerable about us; or to the worst (by which I mean best) Am I the Asshole post you’ve ever read on Reddit, in its commitment to embodying its characters at their neediest and most candid and therefore most delectable. But to do so would be to sell it short. I finished Rejection breathless with admiration. It is — Tulathimutte is — that rare thing in American literature: truly original. ”
“No one here gets out alive — if soul murder counts... Tulathimutte is a big talent and he is clearly just getting started.”
“Startlingly good... There’s a volatile thrill to the writing that owes to the electricity of the language but also to the collision of extreme registers. The psychic torment of these characters can be as disturbing as graphic horror stories; it can also be snortingly funny”
“Phenomenal... few writers dramatize the effects of being perennially online as astutely and engagingly as Tulathimutte does here”
“The prose is consistently sharp and funny as Tulathimutte cuts to the truth of his characters’ dilemmas. It’s a first-rate exploration of yearning and solitude”
“Rejection could be the year’s feel-bad book, butTulathimutte’s inventiveness, his intellect, his sense of humor, and his precise style make his characters’ mortifications a pleasure to read”
“Tulathimutte is utterly inimitable. Rejection is fast and funny, a delirious convergence of the haptic and uncanny.”
“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.”
“The stories in REJECTION ring with audacity like a siren. This book is a depraved Call to Alarm; it is also a gift to readers who readily lick the poison frog of Alarming Literature. The characters within are deliriously shocking, toxic, transgressive…but due to Tulathimutte’s extraordinary talents, the most frightening moments in the collection—those which make this book feel truly dangerous—are those of empathy. It’s this vertiginous event…feeling like I’m leering on from behind the safety of a glass wall, savoring the thrill of moving in for a far closer peek than I’d ever dare in the wild… then suddenly realizing I’m the one behind the glass, a complicit specimen who’s just been collected via the author’s mastery…that will have me reading and rereading this book until I die or can no longer stand it. Tulathimutte is peerless.”