LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN FICTION • A NEW YORK TIMES BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious, original and highly disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire." —Giles Harvey, The New York Times Magazine From the Whiting and O. Henry–winning author of Private Citizens (“the first great millennial novel,” New York Magazine) , an electrifying novel-in-stories that follows a cast of intricately linked characters as rejection throws their lives and relationships into chaos. Sharply observant and outrageously funny, Rejection is a provocative plunge into the touchiest problems of modern life. The seven connected stories seamlessly transition between the personal crises of a complex ensemble and the comic tragedies of sex, relationships, identity, and the internet. In “The Feminist,” a young man’s passionate allyship turns to furious nihilism as he realizes, over thirty lonely years, that it isn’t getting him laid. A young woman’s unrequited crush in “Pics” spirals into borderline obsession and the systematic destruction of her sense of self. And in “Ahegao; or, The Ballad of Sexual Repression,” a shy late bloomer’s flailing efforts at a first relationship leads to a life-upending mistake. As the characters pop up in each other’s dating apps and social media feeds, or meet in dimly lit bars and bedrooms, they reveal the ways our delusions can warp our desire for connection. These brilliant satires explore the underrated sorrows of rejection with the authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a manifesto. Audacious and unforgettable, Rejection is a stunning mosaic that redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society, and oneself. " Rejection is unrelentingly brutal and gut-bustingly funny and spares no one—not you, not me. Tulathimutte is a pervert and a madman and a stone-cold genius." — Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties “One of the foremost fiction writers exploring the subject of his own generation.” —Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker Named a best book of the year by The New York Times • The New Yorker • Wall Street Journal • Esquire • TIME • Kirkus • The New York Public Library • Vanity Fair • NPR • and more! "Tulathimutte is such an acutely observant writer that I was entranced by his book despite its narrowness and emotional barbarity. One of Tulathimutte’s primal topics is online culture and its diseased repercussions, and he writes about these things in the way Anthony Bourdain wrote about restaurants, Hunter S. Thompson wrote about motorcycle gangs and Molly Ivins wrote about water-headed Texas politicians. He’s alert, in other words; he’s tanked up, bleakly funny and always stropping his knife. . . . Tulathimutte is a big talent and he is clearly just getting started.” - Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review “Not until I picked up Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection did I realize how fun it could be to read a book about a bunch of huge fucking losers. . . . it’s a thrill for the sickos among us, the king being Tulathimutte, who gives loserdom its own rancid carnival. Tulathimutte understands the project—both his own and that of his characters—with diagnostic, comprehensive hyper-precision; as you behold his parade of marketplace failure and personal pathology, he’s ten steps ahead of any reaction you could muster. . . . one of the foremost fiction writers exploring the subject of his own generation.” - Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker "A master comedian with a virtuoso prose style has produced an audacious, original and highly disturbing book . . . an incandescent satire." - Giles Harvey, The New York Times Magazine “Maybe ‘love’ is too soft-focus of a word for the mix of awe, exhilaration and, occasionally, nausea I felt while reading about the book’s unlucky protagonists. . . Tulathimutte writes with virtuosic brio about loneliness and humiliation. I found myself perversely heartened by his depraved genius. His book is what I needed to read this year: bleak, funny and utterly ruthless.” - Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times Book Review “The closest thing to reading David Foster Wallace I’ve encountered since we lost him. It’s upsetting and hilarious and impressively deranged.” - Chris Hayes “I felt like I knew each of the damaged maddening people in these internet-soaked stories and I have a feeling you will too. I read this in one sitting.” - John Mulaney "The funniest book I've ever read." - Bowen Yang “A blistering collection of interconnecting short stories, Rejection takes a magnifying glass to the mind in the internet age.” - Vogue, “Best Books of the Year” “Startlingly good. . . There’s a volatile thrill to the writing that owes to the electricity of the language but also to the collision of extreme registers. The psychic torment of these characters can be as disturbing as graphic horror stories; it can also be snortingly funny.” -