Banal Nightmare

Halle Butler is a first-rate satirist of the horror show being sold to us as Modern Femininity. She is Thomas Bernhard in a bad mood, wearing ill-fitting tights, scrutinizing old take-out leftovers. Catherine Lacey

Her sense of humour should be studied and celebrated. David Sedaris

Margaret Anne ("Moddie") Yance has just returned to her hometown, to mingle with the friends of her youth, get back in touch with her roots, and recover from a stressful decade of living in the city in a small apartment with a man she now believes to be a megalomaniac or perhaps a covert narcissist.

Back home, Moddie throws herself at the mercy of her old friends, all suddenly tipping toward middle age. She joins them as they go to parties, size each other up, obsess over past slights, dream of wild triumphs, and indulge in elaborate revenge fantasies.

But when a mysterious artist arrives in town to take up a 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.

The inimitable Halle Butler, author of The New Me, returns with a novel that is sadistically precise, completely singular, and horribly funny.