Lost Lambs - by Madeline Cash (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Lost Lambs follows a suburban family of five unspooling at the seams, navigating a disastrous open marriage, teenage rebellion, and an unexpected human trafficking/body-hacking crime conspiracy"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

"I can't remember the last time a novel made me laugh so hard or feel so much tenderness for its characters." --Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

"Madeline Cash is a voice like no other." --Lena Dunham

"I've read entire books that contain less wit and inventiveness than a single one of Cash's sentences." --Eric Puchner, New York Times-bestselling author of Dream State

"With a big surge of energy, Lost Lambs splits the nucleus of the American family." --Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection

Rippling with humor, warmth, and style, Lost Lambs is a new vision of the charms and pitfalls of family dysfunction.

The Flynn family is coming undone. Catherine and Bud's open marriage has reached its breaking point as their daughters spiral in their own chaotic orbits: Abigail, the eldest, is dating a man in his twenties nicknamed War Crime Wes; Louise, the middle child, maintains a secret correspondence with an online terrorist; the brilliant youngest, Harper, is being sent to wilderness reform camp due to her insistence that someone--or something--is monitoring the town's citizens.

Casting a shadow across their lives, and their small coastal town, is Paul Alabaster, a billionaire shipping magnate. Rumors of corruption circulate, but no one dares dig too deep. No one except Harper, whose obsession with a mysterious shipping container sends the family hurtling into a criminal conspiracy--one that may just bring them closer together.

Irreverent and addictive, pinging between the voices of the Flynn family and those of the panorama of characters around them, Madeline Cash's Lost Lambs is a debut novel of quick-witted observation and surprising tenderness. With it, Cash has crafted a family saga for the twenty-first century, all held together with crazy glue.

Review Quotes

"[A] glittering debut . . . Cash has a finely tuned ear for the silliness of modern language . . . and she serves up wild slapstick and a twist of nasty horror before sending things out on a sweet and surprisingly sentimental note. The novel is anchored in its affection for the hapless but well-meaning Flynns, whose banter is endlessly irresistible . . . It's unforgettable." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Cash has a hit debut on her hands based on the guffaw-inducing, deadpan humor alone . . . In addition to the generous portions of humor, Cash weaves in a fun romp in which the family members get to exercise their strengths. An entertaining and breezy read reminiscent of the best of Kevin Wilson." --Booklist (starred review)

"There's a tendency among young, internet-influenced authors to hold satire as the paradigm. Whether the target is institutional powers or the writer's own self and milieu, there is an exhausting ennui in many of these books, where protagonists eerily similar to their authors plod along under late capitalism and patriarchy. However, debut novelist Madeline Cash is an exception to these dreary trends . . . [Lost Lambs is] a clever, irreverent family drama that, for all its bite, also hits some sincere notes . . . While her peers' work may be politically relevant, irreverent, highbrow, or entertaining, Cash takes things one step further: Lost Lambs has all those qualities, and also a heart." --Bookpage

"Cash's debut novel has fun with everything it touches, rocketing through the points of view of the family members and other townspeople, delighting in wordplay and absurd details . . . Between the crowd of quirky characters and drastic situations, the high-flying sentences and prose style, and Cash's relentless joke-cracking, the novel is, like Harper, almost too clever for its own good--but the Flynns stay just real enough to win our hearts." --Kirkus Reviews

"Like an epic road trip or a perfect dinner party, Lost Lambs is immersive and propulsive and I never wanted it to end. I can't remember the last time a novel made me laugh so hard or feel so much tenderness for its characters, this feral chorus of voices and desires, unhinged and witty and full of longing; I wanted to take care of them, hear their whispered confessions, stay up all night talking with them in the treehouse. Madeline Cash's prose is tuned to a singular radio channel no one else has ever found, where the music is part torch song, part power ballad, part heartbeat heard from the womb--strange and sweet and utterly surprising. I loved it. I devoured it. I can't wait for everyone else to hear it, too." --Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

"A wonderful new comic voice. I've read entire books that contain less wit and inventiveness than a single one of Cash's sentences, which make 'lifelike' and 'absurd' seem like synonyms. Her ear for dialogue is inspired. Lost Lambs had me laughing throughout--even when I was horrified--and rooting for the Flynn sisters to save us all." --Eric Puchner, New York Times-bestselling author of Dream State

"With a big surge of energy, Lost Lambs splits the nucleus of the American family--look into the flash and you'll see teen terrorists, smoking hot handywomen, and the most suicidal suburban dad this side of John Cheever. Madeline Cash likes to get dark, but fortunately the dark is where her writing glows." --Tony Tulathimutte, author of Rejection

"From magical realism to magical nihilism, Madeline Cash is a voice like no other. Her novel of normal people breaking down under the most abnormal circumstances will shift the way you see the family and community into something operatic, strange and profound." --Lena Dunham

"Lost Lambs is meticulously crafted by a writer who is clearly a dazzling and singular new voice in literary fiction, as bold and assured a debut as Zadie Smith's White Teeth or Jeffrey Eugenides' The Virgin Suicides. Loud, hilarious, shocking, and sensitive, we will all remember Lost Lambs as the beginning of a long and thrilling career." --Megan Nolan, author of Ordinary Human Failings

"Lost Lambs is wild. It struts. Madeline Cash calls us into a vividly imagined world, a Pynchon-paradise absurd enough to actually create a great, great American novel." --Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book

"Lost Lambs goes off like a firework. Intrigue and mystery burst outward while the family at the center of the story implodes. What I loved most were the big, seeking hearts of Madeline Cash's characters as they reach awkwardly toward love and connection--this novel is as sincere as it is funny (and it's very funny)." --Ramona Ausubel, bestselling author of The Last Animal

"The nightmare of the now has a radiant and vicious new bard, and her name is Madeline Cash." --Sam Lipsyte, author of No One Left to Come Looking for You

About the Author

Madeline Cash is the founder of Forever Magazine and the author of the story collection Earth Angel. Her fiction has appeared in Granta, The Baffler, The Sewanee Review, The Drift, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City.