The Found Object Society - by Michelle Maryk

Book Synopsis

An atmospheric and genre-bending debut following a mysterious society offering its members the chance to relive the death of another person whenever they want--and the self-destructive woman determined to uncover its secrets

For twenty years, Greta Davenport has lived with the guilt of surviving the accident that killed her parents. She's tested the limits of her own mortality ever since, but little gives her the dopamine rush she craves. Not until the night she almost drunkenly crashes her car into a tree, and a peculiar blank card slides under her front door--an invitation to the Found Object Society.

What she discovers there is beyond comprehension: an opulent, subterranean playground filled with aisles of objects from different eras and regions of the world. Pick an object and go on a voyage to relive the final moments of the person who died holding it, along with an unparalleled, irreplicable high. Greta's hooked after a single voyage, and the only person she can share her experience with is another society member, the beautiful and haunted Ezra, who has suffered a profound lost of his own. They quickly fall for one another, and as the two become increasingly consumed in chasing the high of their respective death voyages their lives unravel. But Greta has questions about the society and its enigmatic creators, the answers to which have implications far beyond her growing dependence on the voyages. Death is addictive, and what she uncovers will put her entire life into question.

A fever dream of a novel, The Found Object Society examines the depraved whims of the ultrarich and the breadth of unresolved trauma--all while asking how grief and the choices we make in its aftermath can change the course of our lives. Michelle Maryk's wholly original and ambitious debut opens an impeccably wrought speculative world of greed, power, and destiny, perfect for readers of Matt Haig and Sarah Penner.

About the Author

Michelle Maryk graduated from Cornell University with a degree in English and attended the Yale Writer's Workshop. For the better part of twenty-five years, she's been a successful voiceover, on-camera commercial, and comedic actor, and she is a dual Swedish and US citizen. She has written two screenplays, one in English and another in Swedish. The Found Object Society is her debut novel.