The Internet Novel: Four Fictional Takes On Our Digital Preoccupations - Arts & Culture

Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler

Lauren Oyler's Fake Accounts

News that acclaimed critic Lauren Oyler releasing a book was greeted with excited curiosity due to its author: any review by Oyler has tongues wagging and websites crashing. People wondered if someone whose sharp and acerbic writing voice would be alive in her fiction debut and if maybe she too would feel the taste of her own medicine. Having read Fake Accounts, I can say yes on the former, and no on the latter, because the book is great and was received with rapturous acclaim. Oyler’s unnamed protagonist finds out her boyfriend is an Instagram conspiracy theorist, which sets the plot onwards through murky twists and turns, and asks questions about our internet consumption and what makes it so addictive.

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

The writer of 2017’s Priestdaddy (a memoir of her childhood and dysfunctional family), Patricia Lockwood’s foray onto fiction is just as mind-bending as you expect. Lockwood’s protagonist, famed for her social media posts starts believing she is in a portal, where she must navigate a landscape where voices are dictating her thoughts. Suddenly yanked back to real life, she must deal with the world with all its goodness and its problems.

Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

In Kiley Reid’s Such A Fun Age, Social influencer Alix Chamberlain runs a successful digital brand that preaches confidence. Her toddler’s babysitter Emira Tucker is apprehended at the supermarket. The security guard is suspicious when he sees a young black woman with a white child, and sounds the alarm, accusing Emira of taking the child. A crowd gathers and a witness films everything. What happens next is an account of the microcosm of online living, when you can no longer afford to take a neutral stance in the world today.

The Circle by Dave Eggers

The Circle by Dave Eggers

Mae Holland can’t believe she works for The Circle. The world’s most powerful internet company is run out on a California estate with open-plan office space, modern glass facilities, gyms, work parties, brunches, and an aquarium of rare fish. Employed by the most influential business holding in the world, Mae’s great fortune makes it hard for her to reconcile life within The Circle and outside its safe, cozy bubble. Exciting and captivating, this suspenseful take on ambition and privacy in the workplace is a gripping read.

Where to get it: Fully Booked, Fully Booked Lazada and Amazon

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