Dead Center - by Sara Cooper (Paperback)

About the Book

A gleeful, horrifying satire set in a libertarian dystopia where self-care is virtue, obedience is empowerment, and uselessness is death.

Book Synopsis

After a bloody revolution in America, one true believer thrives in the utopia she helped create. She's proud to be the perfect wife and mother, the backbone of society, who raises her daughter Penelope to be obedient and grateful to those in power. She pushes down seditious feelings like grief. She killed her husband for the good of society--he was too depressed to be useful.
But then her reassigned husband arrives with bad vibes and a suitcase full of forbidden books. When her toddler Warren is taken by the Church-State because she's failed to form a Stable and Productive Family Unit, her faith begins to crack. She helped build this prison, and Penelope is well-trained in its ways.
At once riotous entertainment and gory fortune-telling, this book asks: How does one raise well-adapted children to survive under totalitarian control? Who do the rules protect? And once we break them, how do we rebuild?

About the Author

Sara Cooper is a novelist and playwright-lyricist whose work blends dark humor, psychological insight, and sharp cultural critique. She is the author of Dead Center and Ravenous, both of which were finalist for the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards (2025 and 2026). Her theatre work has received awards and honours from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, American Theatre Wing, New York State Council on the Arts, National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and ASCAP. She holds an MFA from New York University's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and currently teaches at Purchase College and NYU. Learn more at saracooper.me. -