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Banal Nightmare
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Ruby McCollister
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
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Publisher's summary
A ferocious novel by one of the boldest voices in American fiction and the author of The New Me, the “definitive work of millennial literature” (The New Yorker)
“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.
Cover art: Yelling, 1994, by John Wesley. Used with permission of the estate of John Wesley. Private Collection, Photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Image.
Critic reviews
“Halle 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
“In Butler’s world, everyone hates each other, every day is excruciating in its mundanity, every thought is the beginning of an Escherian journey round and round in hell, and somehow the whole thing is unbelievably funny. With the force of an episode of marijuana psychosis and the extreme detail of a hyperrealistic work of art, Banal Nightmare attempts transcendence through anxiety and dissociation, nailing a series of contemporary characters—better pray you’re not one of them—to the wall.”—Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror
“This is a masterpiece, Butler’s best book yet. It burns with a wild, unforgiving fire, making most other novels seem vague and ho-hum in comparison. No feeling is skipped over. No thought is simplified. No idea is dumbed down. Like a knife dancing through air, it’s a manic, nerve-wracking read, painful and so weirdly funny. I felt gripped by it from beginning to end. . . . An unapologetic, totally original, modern marvel.”—Rachel B. Glaser, author of Paulina & Fran
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Story
As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.
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Title should be Guide to Only Fans
- By Michelle on 06-28-24
By: Rufi Thorpe