A sharp, bleakly funny collection of stories about work, failure, performance, class aspiration, digital selfhood, franchised loneliness, and everything else that comes with all of 'that'.

Dalla Rosa writes in that brutally modern register where everyone is almost getting ahead, almost becoming visible, almost turning the corner — and somehow the corner keeps moving like a scam with good branding. The stories move through malls, restaurants, celebrity fantasies, online life, gig work, bad jobs, fake glamour, and the strange emotional economy of trying to become someone under systems designed to keep you circulating but never arriving. Very good for readers who like contemporary fiction that is clean on the surface and rancid underneath: capitalism as mood lighting, ambition as infection, hope as a customer-service voice.

Think along the lines of Patricia Lockwood’s internet-brain clarity, Ottessa Moshfegh’s social discomfort, Brandon Taylor’s precision around status and desire, but with a very Australian sense of deadpan exposure. Not cosy. Not misery porn either. More like being trapped in a Westfield with a dream you no longer remember.

Paperback. Serpent’s Tail/Profile Books. First published in Great Britain 2022; this paperback edition first published 2023. Internally clean; light general handling only.