The Smash-Up

Ali Benjamin

£18.99

We send all orders via Royal Mail: within the UK, choose from 1st Class, 2nd Class or Special Delivery; for the rest of the world, International Standard or International Tracked. Delivery and packaging charges are calculated automatically at the checkout.

To collect orders in person from the Bookshop, choose Click and Collect at the checkout.


Quercus Publishing
23 February 2021
ISBN: 9781529409314
Hardback
352 pages

From the publisher

AN OF-THE-MOMENT NOVEL FOR READERS OF FLEISHMAN IS IN TROUBLE

'
Timely, risky and dazzling' Polly Clark, author of Tiger

'Sharply funny, perceptive, and surprising at every turn, The Smash-Up is a story that's acid-etched and full of heart, intimate, and relevant' Amy Bloom, New York Times bestselling author of White Houses and Away

'Every woman should read this book. Every woman, every feminist, every activist' Jane Harris, author of Orange Prize shortlisted The Observations



After years spent in the city, working with his business partner Randy on Brand media, Ethan finds himself in the quiet, closed-off town of Starkfield. His wife Zenobia is perpetually distracted by the swirling #MeToo politics, the Kavanaugh hearings, and her duties to the feminist activism group she formed: All Them Witches. Ethan finds himself caught between their regular meetings at his home and the battle to get his livewire daughter Alex to sleep.

But the new, stilted rhythm of his life is interrupted when he receives a panicked message. Accusations. Against Randy. A slew of them. And Ethan is abruptly forced to question everything: his past, his future, his marriage, and what he values most.

Unrelenting in its satire, The Smash-up jolts you into the twisted psyche of successful brand advertising, where historic exploitation is only ever a panicked phone-call away. With magnetic energy and doses of comic wit, Benjamin creates a world of social media algorithms, extreme polarization, the collapsing of identity into tweet-sized spaces, and the spectre of violence that can be found even in the quietest places.