Preorder The Book of Ayn here: Penguin Random House
"…all the best books are at least a little funny. This one is very funny…Freiman is a gifted stylist, part of a tradition that is traceable from forebears such as Martin Amis, Sam Lipsyte, Lorrie Moore, and NW-era Zadie Smith, to fellow travelers like Andrew Martin, Tony Tulathimutte, Alissa Nutting, and Patricia Lockwood…The Book of Ayn finds genuine pathos and imaginative empathy in the absolute last places you’d think to look for them or, frankly, hope to find them. Lexi Freiman shitposts from the bottom of her heart." — Justin Taylor, Bookforum
“Lexi Freiman has the qualities of a great comic writer: She’s deeply skeptical, sparing no one, including herself; she doesn’t ruminate at the expense of good timing; and most of all, she understands that the spirit of comedy, like the spirit of art, is risk, that a joke is a leap, and that an uncertain landing is what makes it pleasurable, rousing, even deep.” — Maddie Crum, The Washington Post
“One of the funniest and unruliest novels in ages. It shakes you by the shoulders until you laugh, vomit or both…The author torques her contrarianism, past trolling, past knee-jerk philosophizing and past satire, alchemizing a critique of literary culture in all its ideological waywardness.” — Ryan Chapman, The Los Angeles Times
“A furious, jagged and radiant reckoning with the dangers of the manifesto, the mortifications of aging, the mercies and limitations of the comic posture, the job of the novelist and the indiscriminate desecration it demands.” — Alexandra Tanner, The New York Times Book Review
“[A] delightful cancel-culture satire…One reads The Book of Ayn with genuine relief that someone has pulled off a novel of jokes at the expense of the most solemnly protected absurdities of our time.” — Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“Biting and bawdy, this is a comic novel full of sound and fury. But it wears its heart on its sleeve.” — Esquire
“A delirious road trip through the age of selfishness…Contrarian and chaotic in the smartest way.” — Chicago Tribune
“The artist, Freiman implies, uses her ‘I’ as an alloy, creating a material both durable and porous, blending what she has felt to be true with what she imagines might be true for others . . . By the end, her ‘I’ has been vastly expanded: other people live in her head, whether she wants them to or not, shaping the innermost contours of her self. This vision of identity as plural means that self-assertion does not necessarily come at the expense of the rest of the world. It could even be a declaration of life on another’s behalf.” — Katy Waldman, The New Yorker
“The Book of Ayn is an exquisitely wicked prosing of the reality-cancellation that now passes for reality by pretty much the funniest writer of a generation that has forgotten to laugh. Thank Black Jew Christ for Lexi Freiman.” — Josh Cohen, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Netanyahus.
“I’m no Randoid, yet Lexi Freiman’s playful ribbing of our oh so human, moralistic inconsistencies is a lifeboat on a stormy ocean, where there is at present no safe harbor for a dangerous sense of humor.” — Jim Carrey, author of Memoirs and Misinformation (with Dana Vachon).
“I had the rare experience while reading The Book of Ayn of slowly realizing I had stumbled on something so good that it was changing my taste. So funny, so clever, so alive to the absurdity of contemporary life without reverting to the boring cynicism that would be so easy. I loved it.” — Megan Nolan, author of Ordinary Human Failings.
“A maddening panorama of contemporary concerns, The Book of Ayn locks the dignified and the insoucient in hysterical alignment. Freiman is a writer of startling vision and verbal resource who deepens and subverts our cultural memory. Every sentence is liberating. — Zain Khalid, author of Brother Alive.
“The rarest type of book — smart, hilarious, and audacious. A rebuke to both cynicism and self-righteousness that takes aim at pretty much everybody. — Erin Somers, author of Stay Up with Hugo Best.
“Like stumbling upon a brilliant, abject meme in the dark, The Book of Ayn is a thrill. Freiman’s satire is fierce, outrageous, and omnivorous, lacerating edgelords and the virtuous alike. I haven’t had so much fun with a book in ages.” — Paul Dalla Rosa, author of An Exciting and Vivid Inner Life.
“A viciously funny and precisely observed satire of creative ambition under capitalism. It made me laugh, wince, and want to quit society. I loved it.” — Isabel Kaplan, author of NSFW.
“Infuriating, perverse, contrarian, scandalous, nihilistic, and very, very funny.” — Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens.
About The Book of Ayn…
An original and hilarious satire of both our political culture and those who rage against it, The Book of Ayn follows a writer from New York to Los Angeles to Lesvos as she searches for artistic and spiritual fulfillment in radical selfishness, altruism, and ego-death.
After writing a satirical novel that The New York Times calls classist, Anna is shunned by the literary establishment and, in her hurt, radicalized by the philosophy of Ayn Rand. Determined to follow Rand’s theory of rational selfishness, Anna alienates herself from the scene and eventually her friends and family. Finally, in true Randian style, she abandons everyone for the boundless horizons of Los Angeles, hoping to make a TV show about her beloved muse.
Things look better in Hollywood—until the money starts running out, and with it Anna’s faith in the virtue of selfishness. When a death in the family sends her running back to New York and then spiraling at her mother’s house, Anna is offered a different kind of opportunity. A chance to kill the ego causing her pain at a mysterious commune on the island of Lesvos. The second half of Anna’s odyssey finds her exploring a very different kind of freedom – communal love, communal toilets – and a new perspective on Ayn Rand that could bring Anna back home to herself.
“A gimlet-eyed satirist of the cultural morasses and political impasses of our times” (Alexandra Kleeman), Lexi Freiman speaks in The Book of Ayn not only to a particular millennial loneliness, but also to a timeless existential predicament: the strangeness, absurdity, and hilarity of seeking meaning in the modern world.