Liquid

A most anticipated book of the season for Oprah Daily, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Book Riot, WBUR and LGBTQ Reads.

'Sexy, sly, daring' Justin Torres, National Book Award-winning author of Blackouts

'The smoothest, smartest book I’ve read in quite some time' Paul Beatty, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sellout

'Loving, cutting, mournful, and hilarious' Bryan Washington award-winning author of Family Meal and Memorial



‘My career had gone nowhere. My love life was non-existent. And as for s*x – here I was, home alone on a Saturday night with a chick flick playing on my laptop because I didn’t own a TV. You can draw your own conclusions.’

Our protagonist always believed herself to be the smartest person in the room. But a couple of years on from earning a fancy PhD, she’s still broke, single and stuck in a job going nowhere. One option remains: marry rich.

Her summer becomes a whirlwind of dating: martinis with a lazy heir, board games with a butch producer and a Venmo request from a ‘socialist’ trust-fund babe. However, when some unexpected and tragic news takes her – and her project – to Tehran she is forced to ask and answer some overdue questions about family, connection and, terrifyingly, her own purpose in life and in love.

A riveting spin on a classic romantic comedy, Liquid delivers a modern tale of romance, loss and belonging in a gorgeous high-wire voice that explodes off the page with wit, verve and originality.

Playful, sexy and oppressively sunny. Mariam Rahmani has written a very L.A. novel... She is sharp, clear-eyed and always so fashionable. Mariam brings all that style, wit and brilliance to Liquid, a novel [driven] by a narrative voice that is at turns sardonic, hilarious and yearning. The premise — marry rich or die trying — is handled so intelligently and schematically... The structural bifurcation of the novel is a bold choice, and all the more rewarding for its boldness... Liquid is a book troubling the fault lines.

Justin Torres, Los Angeles Times

About Mariam Rahmani

Mariam Rahmani is a writer and translator. Her fiction, essays and translations have appeared in Granta, Gulf Coast, n+1 and elsewhere. Her first translation was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New Yorker. Rahmani holds a PhD from UCLA and an MFA from Columbia, as well as degrees from Princeton and Oxford. She teaches at Bennington College.
Details
  • Imprint: Doubleday
  • ISBN: 9781529961126
  • Length: 320 pages
  • Dimensions: 223mm x 30mm x 145mm
  • Weight: 426g
  • Price: £16.99
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