It's tempting to compare Vagablonde to Joan Didion's Play It As It Lays... But Dorn's firecracker of a novel is all her own. --Michael Schaub Prue is a 30-year-old attorney who wants two things, the first is to live without psychotropic medication, and the second is to experience success as a rap artist. Her life is good on paper: she has an easy government job and a nice girlfriend who gets her in to all the right shows, but she wants to truly thrive. When Prue is introduced to music producer Jax Jameson, a human disco ball as manic and unpredictable as he is talented, they instantly vibe. Prue joins Jax's "Kingdom," a collective of musicians and artists who share Prue's aesthetic sensibilities and lust for escapism. Soon, she's off her meds, closing her law practice, and becoming entangled with a suspect crew of heavy drug users. The group they form, Shiny AF, quickly reaches cult status and using the stage name Vagablonde, Prue finds herself in a new reality dependent on self-commodification and her growing fandom's approval. An existential exploration of the toxicity of viral fame, Vagablonde is an exhilarating and tumultuous portrait of life in Los Angeles and announces Anna Dorn as a fierce new voice in contemporary fiction.
