Description

A disturbing portrait of a modern American family

‘Imagine Richard Yates becoming fascinated by Donald Antrim before writing Revolutionary Road and you’ll have some idea of Love Orange. One of the most satisfying novels you will read this year. This book rules’ Christian Kiefer, author of Phantoms

‘I enjoyed every minute of it’ Chris Power, author of Mothers

‘A stunningly accurate portrayal . . . shining with vivid dialogue and observation’ Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters

‘[A]n exuberant, comic, irresistibly dark examination of contemporary anxieties’ Vanity Fair
‘An exquisite balance of humour and pathos’ Lunate

An extraordinary debut novel by Natasha Randall, exposing the seam of secrets within an American family, from beneath the plastic surfaces of their new ‘smart’ home. Love Orange charts the gentle absurdities of their lives, and the devastating consequences of casual choices.

While Hank struggles with his lack of professional success, his wife Jenny, feeling stuck and beset by an urge to do good, becomes ensnared in a dangerous correspondence with a prison inmate called John. Letter by letter, John pinches Jenny awake from the “marshmallow numbness” of her life. The children, meanwhile, unwittingly disturb the foundations of their home life with forays into the dark net and strange geological experiments.

Jenny’s bid for freedom takes a sour turn when she becomes the go-between for John and his wife, and develops an unnatural obsession for the orange glue that seals his letters…

Love Orange throws open the blinds of American life, showing a family facing up to the modern age, from the ascendancy of technology, the predicaments of masculinity, the pathologising of children, the epidemic of opioid addiction and the tyranny of the WhatsApp Gods. The first novel by the acclaimed translator is a comic cocktail, an exuberant skewering of contemporary anxieties and prejudices.

Publisher Review

Imagine Richard Yates becoming fascinated by Donald Antrim before writing Revolutionary Road and you'll have some idea of Love Orange. At turns funny, discomfiting, and darkly harrowing, Randall's debut is real life inscribed upon the page. The classic American family of countless TV dramas and comedies is here fractured against the hard fulcrum of the current age. One of the most satisfying novels you will read this year. This book rules. -- Christian Kiefer, author of PHANTOMS 'In Love Orange we see the American nuclear family in meltdown, a phenomenon Natasha Randall describes with wisdom, wit, and a lot of heart. I enjoyed every minute of it' Chris Power, author of Mothers As an acclaimed translator of Russian novels, Natasha Randall has a fine-tuned sense of the absurd, and a wonderfully original way of seeing the world. A stunningly accurate portrayal of American society, shining with vivid dialogue and observation -- Chloe Aridjis, author of Sea Monsters [T]he first novel by this acclaimed translator is an exuberant, comic, irresistibly dark examination of contemporary anxieties * Vanity Fair * An exquisite balance of humour and pathos...The setting and plot ofLove Orange is extremely well crafted * Lunate * Randall throws satirical light on everything from opioid addictions to the domination of modern technology in this exuberant and contemporary novel. * Independent * The translator Natasha Randall's debut novel is a keenly observed account of the travails of an apparently normal American family . . . Hugely ambitious * Observer * Translator Randall makes her fiction debut with this assured and funny story of an American family in crisis trying to hide behind their new "smart" home. * The i * I was . . . hooked by this comedic take on the modern American family * Saga * I loved the rich emotional mayhem of Natasha Randall's Love Orange. * White Review (BOTY) * Love Orange is narrated in a close third-person from multiple points of view, artfully moving between the characters to build an absorbing story. Randall depicts the very contemporary struggles of the Tinkley family with empathy. And her wry humour leavens the serious topics she tackles: the prison system, gender roles, the perils of intrusive technology and the slippery slope of addiction - whether one reaches for drugs or devices for relief from the "marshmallow numbness" of daily life. * TLS *