Love Orange

A disturbing portrait of a modern American family

'Imagine Richard Yates becoming fascinated by Donald Antrim before writing
Revolutionary Road and you'll have some idea of Love Orange. One of the most
satisfying novels you will read this year. This book rules' Christian Kiefer,
author of Phantoms

'I enjoyed every minute of it' Chris Power, author of Mothers

'A stunningly accurate portrayal . . . shining with vivid dialogue and
observation' Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters

'[A]n exuberant, comic, irresistibly dark examination of contemporary
anxieties' Vanity Fair
'An exquisite balance of humour and pathos' Lunate

An extraordinary debut novel by Natasha Randall, exposing the seam of secrets
within an American family, from beneath the plastic surfaces of their new
'smart' home. Love Orange charts the gentle absurdities of their lives, and
the devastating consequences of casual choices.

While Hank struggles with his lack of professional success, his wife Jenny,
feeling stuck and beset by an urge to do good, becomes ensnared in a dangerous
correspondence with a prison inmate called John. Letter by letter, John
pinches Jenny awake from the "marshmallow numbness" of her life. The children,
meanwhile, unwittingly disturb the foundations of their home life with forays
into the dark net and strange geological experiments.

Jenny's bid for freedom takes a sour turn when she becomes the go-between for
John and his wife, and develops an unnatural obsession for the orange glue
that seals his letters...

Love Orange throws open the blinds of American life, showing a family facing
up to the modern age, from the ascendancy of technology, the predicaments of
masculinity, the pathologising of children, the epidemic of opioid addiction
and the tyranny of the WhatsApp Gods. The first novel by the acclaimed
translator is a comic cocktail, an exuberant skewering of contemporary
anxieties and prejudices.