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Funny ha ha

Vicious, vigorous fiction
by
September 2025, no. 479

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte

Fourth Estate, $36.99 hb, 240 pp

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Funny ha ha

Vicious, vigorous fiction
by
September 2025, no. 479

An irony of this age, when everyone is connected to everyone else, is that loneliness proliferates. Martin Luther’s claim that a lonely man ‘always deduces one thing from the other and thinks everything to the worst’ is exemplified by the miserable spiralling of fervidly online isolates. This is the world of Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection.

The US writer’s much-hyped second book (his advance was US$350,000) cements Tulathimutte’s status as a leading chronicler of a particular type of millennial malaise. He pops the zits of the Zeitgeist, probes and provokes, parading the fecklessness of his neurotic, narcissistic characters for our approbation, then turns the tables and makes us, his readers, the patsies. It is dazzling, a lot of the time. It is also profane, brutal, bewildering, depressing.

Rejection

Rejection

by Tony Tulathimutte

Fourth Estate, $36.99 hb, 240 pp

Buy this book

ABR receives a commission on items purchased through this link. All ABR reviews are fully independent.

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