A man goes to terrifying extremes to adopt his celebrity doppelganger's life in this darkly comedic psychological suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Dark Matter and Upgrade . The basis for the upcoming A24 film Famous , starring Zac Efron. “My name is Lancelot Blue Dunkquist, and the best thing about me is, when you doll me up right, I look just like the movie star James Jansen.” Meet Lance. Thirty-eight years old. Works a meaningless job. Still lives above his parents’ garage. By all accounts, a world-class loser. Save for one glaring exception: He has a million-dollar face. Lance has been mistaken eighty-seven times for the Oscar-winning movie star James Jansen, and for the last ten years, he’s saved his money and studied Jansen’s films, his moves, his idiosyncrasies—even the way he speaks. Now, after an unceremonious termination from his job, Lance has decided that the time has come to go after his dream of truly becoming Jansen. From New York’s avant-garde, off-off Broadway scene to the glitter of Los Angeles, Lance embarks on a journey toward becoming James Jansen that will take him closer to the star than even he had dreamed—and to darker lengths than he could’ve possibly imagined. Shot through with dark humor and building to a truly shocking conclusion, Famous is a scary, surprising, genre-blending thrill ride as only Blake Crouch can deliver. Praise for Blake Crouch “Gloriously twisting.” — The New York Times Book Review, on Recursion “Wildly entertaining.” — AV Club, on Recursion “Action packed and brilliantly unique.” —Andy Weir , on Recursion “Equal parts thriller and sci-fi . . . examines how far our humanity can stretch.” — Time, on Upgrade “Amazingly gripping and totally immersive . . . You don’t so much sympathize with the main character as live inside his skin.” —Diana Gabaldon , on Upgrade “You’ll gulp it down in one afternoon, or more likely one night.” — The New York Times Book Review, on Dark Matter “The most helter-skelter, race-to-the-finish-line thriller you’ll read all year, with a clever, mind-bending final twist.” — The Guardian, on Dark Matter Blake Crouch is a bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His novels include Upgrade , Recursion , Dark Matter , and the Wayward Pines trilogy. His Pines trilogy was adapted into a television series for FOX, and he also co-created the TNT show Good Behavior , based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. He currently acts as head writer and showrunner for the hit Apple TV+ adaptation of Dark Matter , starring Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly. He lives in Colorado. Chapter 1 fame and money • James Jansen • goes to work • gets fired • a shopping spree • the day of tranquility • a $100 haircut • the movie premiere • says goodbye to Mom and Dad Let me tell you something about being famous. First off, it doesn’t make you depressed or dissociated from humankind. That’s all bullshit. Being famous . . . is like the very best thing in the world. Everybody knows you, everybody loves you, and it’s just because you’re you. And that’s supposed to make you want to eat sleeping pills? Only reason celebrities say fame blows is so we won’t hate them. Because if we really knew how happy they are, how incredible it is just to be them, to own the world, we’d hate them, and then they’d just be notorious. And the money. Jesus. If I hear one more multimillionaire tell me that money won’t make me happy, I’m going to hurt someone. Really. My name is Lancelot Blue Dunkquist, and the best thing about me is, when you doll me up just right, I look like a Movie Star. I’ve been mistaken for James Jansen eighty-seven times. Of course you know who James Jansen is. Remember And Then There Was One? That’s his most successful movie, sorry, film to date. Actors don’t make movies. They make films. Anyway, James Jansen played the detective. You know the part at the end where the guy walks in on the bank robbery and he’s only got one bullet left? He knows he’s dead, but he stares down the two robbers and says, “By God, you may walk out of here with that money, but which one of you is it going to be?” What a line. I’m actually an inch taller than James Jansen, but you see, this works to my advantage, because when people see me, they’re thinking, It’s JJ! He’s larger than life! Yes. I am larger than life. • In my real life, I work as a legal secretary in a patent-law firm in Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s very convenient, because I live just up the interstate in Huntersville, above the garage in my parents’ house. It’s a perfect setup, really. I get to use Mom’s car four days a week (on Tuesdays she takes me to work and picks me up, because she volunteers in the administrative office of our Baptist church). Dad doesn’t even make me pay rent, so I’m saving money like crazy. As of my last bank statement, $41,617.21 was simmering in my money market account. I usually wake up at 6:45 a.m. Lewis Baker Th