A bracing satire about the implosion of a Theranos-like company, a collapsing marriage, and a billionaires’ “philanthropy summit,” for fans of Hari Kunzru and The White Lotus.
In 72 hours, a blockbuster exposé will reveal Victoria Stevens’s multibillion-dollar startup as a massive fraud. And Victoria has gone missing. Has she faked her death, leaving her husband, Guy Sarvananthan, to face the fallout— and potential jail time? Should Guy flee to his native Sri Lanka, an outcast and a failure? Or embrace denial? Opting for the latter, he takes the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, where the 0.0001% have gathered to decide which one of the world’s biggest problems to “eradicate forever.” Guy drinks and drugs his way into oblivion, through manicured jungles and aboard superyachts, amid captains of industry, legions of staff, and unlikely saboteurs.
Meanwhile, Victoria narrates her side of the story from an off-the-grid location in the California desert. In scribbled diary entries shot through with cultish self-help mantras, she plots her comeback, confident she’ll prove everyone wrong. Again.
Ryan Chapman’s incisive novel is a swan dive into the abyss and “Martin Amis’s Money for really late, late capitalism” (Amitava Kumar, author of A Time Outside This Time).
Genre: Literary Fiction
In 72 hours, a blockbuster exposé will reveal Victoria Stevens’s multibillion-dollar startup as a massive fraud. And Victoria has gone missing. Has she faked her death, leaving her husband, Guy Sarvananthan, to face the fallout— and potential jail time? Should Guy flee to his native Sri Lanka, an outcast and a failure? Or embrace denial? Opting for the latter, he takes the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, where the 0.0001% have gathered to decide which one of the world’s biggest problems to “eradicate forever.” Guy drinks and drugs his way into oblivion, through manicured jungles and aboard superyachts, amid captains of industry, legions of staff, and unlikely saboteurs.
Meanwhile, Victoria narrates her side of the story from an off-the-grid location in the California desert. In scribbled diary entries shot through with cultish self-help mantras, she plots her comeback, confident she’ll prove everyone wrong. Again.
Ryan Chapman’s incisive novel is a swan dive into the abyss and “Martin Amis’s Money for really late, late capitalism” (Amitava Kumar, author of A Time Outside This Time).
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"Ryan Chapman cavorts amidst the twisted wreckage of our zeitgeist like it's his own rollicking funhouse. The Audacity is a tragicomic thrill ride that tips a trick-filled hat to postmodernists past as it delivers its devastating cultural critique. The smartest, most enjoyable novel I've read all year." - David Goodwillie
"Almost exactly a hundred years later, this is The Great Gatsby, updated. This is the art of the affluent we want. The excesses of the lives of the idealistic or deluded or avaricious super-rich might all be false but what is certainly real is the energy on each page of this novel. The only way to blurb this book is simply quote from it. Martin Amis's Money for really late, late capitalism." - Amitava Kumar
"Equal parts Sam Lipsyte and Don DeLillo, The Audacity is razor-sharp satire about the lowlifes of high tech and the absurdity of our present reality. Chapman's prose overflows with verve, wit, and intelligence, but he never forgets the tender, beating heart at the core. I tore through the book with laughter and envy." - Lincoln Michel
"There are funny books, and then there is the occasional novel that actually makes you cackle - which I did, repeatedly, as I read Ryan Chapman's The Audacity. It's a satire that hits on the line level, sparing none of its characters or observation from its skewering wit. Timely in its reference points, but timeless in what it says about the relationship between America, inequality, and cultural assimilation, this book is A Modest Proposal by way of Succession." - Kevin Nguyen
"Fearless, irreverent, and so very funny, The Audacity skewers the ego-driven disruption culture of the uber rich. Chapman is a master of satire, and his hilarious runs are threaded through with moving looks at American identity, grief, self-loathing and self-worth. This is a dark, timely, super smart book." - Kimberly King Parsons
"Ryan Chapman's outstanding comic sensibility is matched by acrobatic prose of the first rank. The Audacity is an immersively entertaining, tightly controlled bullet of a novel." - Teddy Wayne
"Almost exactly a hundred years later, this is The Great Gatsby, updated. This is the art of the affluent we want. The excesses of the lives of the idealistic or deluded or avaricious super-rich might all be false but what is certainly real is the energy on each page of this novel. The only way to blurb this book is simply quote from it. Martin Amis's Money for really late, late capitalism." - Amitava Kumar
"Equal parts Sam Lipsyte and Don DeLillo, The Audacity is razor-sharp satire about the lowlifes of high tech and the absurdity of our present reality. Chapman's prose overflows with verve, wit, and intelligence, but he never forgets the tender, beating heart at the core. I tore through the book with laughter and envy." - Lincoln Michel
"There are funny books, and then there is the occasional novel that actually makes you cackle - which I did, repeatedly, as I read Ryan Chapman's The Audacity. It's a satire that hits on the line level, sparing none of its characters or observation from its skewering wit. Timely in its reference points, but timeless in what it says about the relationship between America, inequality, and cultural assimilation, this book is A Modest Proposal by way of Succession." - Kevin Nguyen
"Fearless, irreverent, and so very funny, The Audacity skewers the ego-driven disruption culture of the uber rich. Chapman is a master of satire, and his hilarious runs are threaded through with moving looks at American identity, grief, self-loathing and self-worth. This is a dark, timely, super smart book." - Kimberly King Parsons
"Ryan Chapman's outstanding comic sensibility is matched by acrobatic prose of the first rank. The Audacity is an immersively entertaining, tightly controlled bullet of a novel." - Teddy Wayne
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