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Black Bag (Hardcover)

Black Bag by Luke Kennard

“A genre-defying, big-swing of a novel with a Kafkaesque premise.”—Andrew Boryga

Find yourself in Black Bag: a warped campus novel, an investigation into masculinity, and an off-kilter love story. 

Sale Date
ISBN
9781638933380
Page Count
352
Language
English
Dimensions
6¼ x 9¼
Imprint
Zando
Luke Kennard
“Tremendously deft . . . it had me laughing, unnerved, and hopeful as it galloped through a true and strange world.” —Emily Nemens, bestselling author of The Cactus League

An out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime—sitting soundlessly in a lecture theater, zipped into a large leather bag—to aid a professor’s psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong?


In Luke Kennard’s audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr. Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr. Blend’s students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of Fall lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own—in particular, can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag?—and the actor’s childhood friend forms a vision for monetizing this new situation . . .

A warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity, and an off-kilter love story, Black Bag is a firework of a novel: blazingly funny and profoundly humane.

“A genre-defying, big-swing of a novel . . . a sharply funny meditation on masculinity, academia, the modern attention economy, and the quiet desperation of everyday life.” —Andrew Boryga, author of Victim
  • “A genre-defying, big-swing of a novel with a Kafkaesque premise . . . a sharply funny meditation on masculinity, academia, the modern attention economy, and the quiet desperation of everyday life.”
    Andrew Boryga, author of Victim
  • “Irreverent and honest, Black Bag is an answer to the ‘masculinity crisis’ that suggests the solution is a lot easier than it appears.”
    OurCulture Mag
  • “A comedic masterpiece. Part SNL sketch, part Spike Jonze film.”
    Ben Purkert, author of The Men Can’t Be Saved

Zando

Where the unexpected lives. Fiction that surprises. Nonfiction that sticks. The Zando imprint publishes weird, wonderful, and culture-shaping stories from authors with something to say . . . and the confidence to say it loudly.

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