Keynote
A novel that celebrates radical queer survival and gleefully takes a hammer to false notions of success
Book Title
Corey Fah Does Social Mobility
Subtitle
A Novel
Cover Image
- “Buckle up! Corey Fah Does Social Mobility is a head-spinning, mind-bending roller coaster of fun, horror, and subversion. I love it.”—Kamila Shamsie
Body
This is the story of Corey Fah, a writer who has hit the literary jackpot: their novel has just won the prize for the Fictionalization of Social Evils. But the actual trophy, and with it the funds, hovers peskily out of reach.
Neon-beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with their partner Drew and eight-legged companion Bambi Pavok, on a spectacular quest through their childhood in the Forest and an unlikely stint on reality TV. Navigating those twin horrors, along with wormholes and time loops, Corey learns—the hard way—the difference between a prize and a gift.
Following the Goldsmiths Prize–winning Sterling Karat Gold, Isabel Waidner’s bold and buoyant new novel is about coming into one’s own, the labor of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself, and what ensues when a large amount of cultural capital is suddenly deposited in a place it has never been before.
Neon-beige, with UFO-like qualities, the elusive trophy leads Corey, with their partner Drew and eight-legged companion Bambi Pavok, on a spectacular quest through their childhood in the Forest and an unlikely stint on reality TV. Navigating those twin horrors, along with wormholes and time loops, Corey learns—the hard way—the difference between a prize and a gift.
Following the Goldsmiths Prize–winning Sterling Karat Gold, Isabel Waidner’s bold and buoyant new novel is about coming into one’s own, the labor of love, the tendency of history to repeat itself, and what ensues when a large amount of cultural capital is suddenly deposited in a place it has never been before.
List Price
$16.00
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About the Author
Credit: Robin Silas Christian
Praise
- “The pure fun and sheer weirdness of Isabel Waidner’s mind cannot be matched; with each book, they get better and better. . . . This is that rare thing: An authentically radical novel that is joyful and hilarious.”—Merve Emre
- “Rare . . . a novel with real stylistic and political ambition.”—Zadie Smith, The Guardian
- “The novel is an allegory that argues, effectively, that admission is not the same thing as access. . . . And as the narrative comes to its wild end, Waidner conveys, quite poignantly, that a person has no other choice in this life but to be true to themself.”—Ainslie Hogarth, The New York Times Book Review
- “This is a deeply funny and unrelentingly bizarre look at the vagaries of literary success, and although Waidner loads it with their trademark absurdity, it’s still grounded by the author’s straight-faced (but lively) prose. It’s beginning to look like there’s nothing the immensely talented Waidner can’t do. Another smart, entertaining dispatch from Waidner's bizarro world.”—Kirkus (starred review)
