****: or, The Anatomy of Melancholy

"The kind of novel that can inspire laughter and anxiety with a single sentence... horrifying, hilarious and evocative." ~ Emily May, #1 Goodreads UK reviewer

"... a well crafted book, a bleak yet thought-provoking portrayal of a character whose very superficiality leaves us eager to find out what horrors lie beneath the surface ..." ~ Rob Stirrups, The Lancet

"There's a talent burning away throughout this work like a slow fuse... Matthew Selwyn is an emerging major writer." ~ Peter Maughan, author

DESCRIPTION

Reality is overrated. Sex, love, power, life: it's gone digital. Why settle for a girlfriend with cellulite? Why spend every day working a dead-end job? These are the new days, the infinite days: plug in, get connected. Life is porn, porn is life, don't accept anything less than the electric light show that is our digital reality.

At the end of every computer screen, a mind is being formed on the material coughed up by the web that connects us all: this is the story of one of the internet's children, told from his own warped perspective. This is the millennial generation, the Y generation: we're horny, lonely, afraid, and self-confident. This is our story, our reality.

Thrillingly inventive and powerfully engaging, ****: The Anatomy of Melancholy is a timely examination of life and masculinity in the digital age, a study of loneliness and mental decay, and a satire on the consumption of literature of disaffection. Brutally honest and darkly comic, it is a very modern novel about a very modern life.