Description

A stylish, seductive new novel from Rebecca Sarah Ley, winner of a Betty Trask Prize and the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize

‘A stylish and gripping take on the campus novel – witty, incredibly sharp, and compulsively readable’ Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure

‘I loved it: a bleakly funny, off-kilter examination of the dynamics of power and attraction. I raced through it’ Rebecca Wait, author of I’m Sorry You Feel That Way

Sofie Muller can make you into a better writer.

That’s why Alice and Walt are desperate to be in her creative writing class. She can spot talent and apply pressure, hone you – if you’re good enough, if you want it enough – into something more elegant, original, daring.

Alice wants it. She wants Sofie’s hand guiding hers to greatness, then the book deal, then the prizes and the plaudits.

Still, there is gossip. Sofie will kill your darlings. Sofie will drive you too hard. Sofie’s boundary-pushing is not just professional, it is personal. By the time Alice realises the rumours may be true, is it too late to wriggle free? And if not, is it worth it to get what she always dreamed of?

BAD FICTION is a timely, brilliant novel about fame and mentorship, betrayal and submission, from one of Britain’s brightest young writers.

Publisher Review

‘Deftly exploring questions about complicity and artistic integrity, Bad Fiction is a stylish and gripping take on the campus novel – witty, incredibly sharp, and compulsively readable’ Sophie Mackintosh, author of The Water Cure

‘I loved it: a bleakly funny, off-kilter examination of the dynamics of power and attraction. I raced through it’ Rebecca Wait, author of I’m Sorry You Feel That Way

‘Rebecca Sarah Ley has nailed the creative writing workshop and how quickly a good story can turn addictively toxic. Beware the advice you receive, beware writing about what you know. Darker truths always lie behind imagined worlds’ Professor Henry Sutton, Director Creative Writing MA Prose Fiction, UEA

Praise for Rebecca Sarah Ley’s previous novel, Sweet Fruit, Sour Land…

Winner of the Guardian’s Not the Booker Prize 2018

Winner of a Betty Trask Prize 2019

Shortlisted for The Kitschies Golden Tentacle 2018

‘Beautifully and elegantly written… A slow burn to a very moving ending’ The Guardian Not the Booker Judges

‘Utterly absorbing and with prose to savour, this is a novel that will stay with me’ Hannah Kohler, author of The Outside Lands

‘Peppered with unusual, thought-provoking and at times poetic insight into memory, sense, questioning the status quo, including what feminist resistance looks like’ Laura Waddell, author of Exit