Description

“Unhinged. I mean that in a good way—I think.

Remy and Alicia are such incredibly dysfunctional beings in such an incredibly dysfunctional relationship who are obsessed with a dysfunctional Jen who embraces and encourages dysfunction to the point where every single character is dysfunctional in a society built on both pretending dysfunctions don’t exist and propagating more dysfunction by way of intense, artificial interactions.

If the word “dysfunction” lost all meaning for you up there, that’s exactly the point. Submerged in both overwhelming anxiety and chronic social/mental fatigue, this novel feels like a biting critique of our times before blurring into a heightened, surreal, intoxicating horror.

Darkly comic and endlessly weird, this is a book that reads like it’s going off the rails except no one knows where the rails are or if they even exist.”

<3Miranda

“Um, holy shit…This novel will be the most fun you’ll have this summer.” —Emily Temple, Literary Hub

Remy and Alicia, a couple of insecure  service workers, are not particularly happy together. But they are bound by a shared obsession with Jen, a beautiful former co-worker of Remy’s who now seems to be following her bliss as a globe-trotting jewelry designer. In and outside the bedroom, Remy and Alicia’s entire relationship revolves around fantasies of Jen, whose every Instagram caption, outfit, and new age mantra they know by heart.

Imagine their confused excitement when they run into Jen, in the flesh, and she invites them on a surfing trip to the Hamptons with her wealthy boyfriend and their group. Once there, Remy and Alicia try (a little too hard) to fit into Jen’s exalted social circle, but violent desire and class resentment bubble beneath the surface of this beachside paradise, threatening to erupt. As small disturbances escalate into outright horror, we find ourselves tumbling with Remy and Alicia into an uncanny alternate reality, one shaped by their most unspeakable, deviant, and intoxicating fantasies.  Is this what “self-actualization” looks like?

Part millennial social comedy, part psychedelic horror, and all wildly entertaining, A Touch of Jen is a sly, unflinching examination of the hidden drives that lurk just outside the frame of our carefully curated selves.