Gay & Lesbian Fiction, Crimes - Fiction, Multicultural Detectives - Fiction

With or Without You

Name: With or Without You
Author: Lauren Sanders
ISBN: 9781888451696

by Lauren Sanders

Available on Bookshop Write a review

Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.

Overview

“In Sanders’s hands, what is usually cliché or gratuitous is hot.” —Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls

Award-winning novelist Lauren Sanders offers a story about the isolation and loneliness of adolescence and the neglect—benign as it may be—of the familial, cultural, and political institutions that are supposed to provide some sort of “support system.”

Lauren Sanders is a novelist and journalist who lives in New York City. Her highly acclaimed debut novel, Kamikaze Lust (Akashic, 2000), won a 2001 Lambda Literary Award. Sanders’s writing has appeared in many publications including the American Book Review, Poets & Writers, and Time Out New York.

Synopsis

A lonely teenage girl takes the life of a soap opera actress she's been enamored with.

author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future - Jennifer Baumgardner

"With or Without You's heroine, Lillian G. Speck, is an artist, baby dyke, and a murderer. She's also charming and heartbreaking in spite of her crimes. Speck, I wish you hadn't done it-but I'm happy to have the book that resulted!"

About the Author, Lauren Sanders

Lauren Sanders is a novelist and journalist who lives in New York City. Her highly acclaimed debut novel, Kamikaze Lust (Akashic, 2000) won a 2001 Lambda Literary Award. Sanders?s writing has appeared in publications including the American Book Review, Poets & Writers, and Time Out New York. She is coeditor of the anthology Too Darn Hot: Writing About Sex Since Kinsey, published by Persea Books in 1998. She is a graduate of Columbia University's school of journalism and has an MA in Creative Writing from City College in New York.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Eileen Myles

"I hate the term poetic, but Lauren Sanders's writing has such a slick mean surface and her subject is such a truly bad girl, a murderer. I mean, so that poetic suits With or Without You just fine, It's a hot poetic book I wouldn't kick out of bed."—author of Cool for You and Chelsea Girls

Jennifer Baumgardner

Nina Revoyr

"Lauren Sanders's new novel packs a wallop. With skillfull precision, Sanders paints the vivid worlds of hardened young women in prison, aimless teens on Long Island, and the narcissistic world of B-list celebrities. Wicked, fun, disturbing, and heartbreaking, With or Without You is a fearless book that pushes every boundary. It captures perfectly the torment of modern-day adolescence, as well as the utter loneliness of obsession."
—author of Southland

Publishers Weekly

In Sanders's pulpy debut, Kamikaze Lust (winner of a 2000 Lambda Literary Award), the author skewered stereotypes of porn stars and lesbians while scrutinizing perceptions of moral values. Her vibrant, vigorous second novel is a sendup of America's obsession with pop culture, B-list celebrities and prison life, peopled by a cast of lonely, desperate characters whose only fault is that they love too much. In the summer of 1987, 18-year-old Lillian G. Speck catapults to tabloid fame after she shoots and kills Brooke Harrison, a soap star she has long worshipped. Narrated by Lillian from prison, the novel is part journal, part suicide note and part psychological suspense story, tracing Lillian's path from poor little rich kid to killer. Neglected by her heedless parents, who are caught up in the drug excesses of the 1980s, Lillian is a child with sociopathic tendencies who is desperate for love and attention. Her story is artfully juxtaposed with that of Brooke Harrison's mother, who reveals the seamy side of a Hollywood inhabited by plastic people who have too much money and can't tell the difference between reality and fiction. In lyrical, potent prose, Sanders navigates the terrain of loneliness, obsession and desperation with the same skillful precision as her vulnerable, calculating protagonist. Agent, TK. Author tour. (Mar.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

In this latest novel from Sanders (Kamikaze Lust), Lillian Speck sits in jail, coolly recounting the events that have led to her awaiting trial for the murder of Brooke Harrison, soap opera star. Even though she meant to kill Brooke, Lillian is truly sorry this has happened, for she had loved and followed the star's career and personal life for most of her own life. What, then, caused Lillian to murder the person to whom she felt closest? This psychological "whydunit" provides a compelling and sympathetic look into the mind of an obsessed fan who can't quite explain what went wrong. Part coming-of-age story and part prison novel, the story explores the fragile relationship between celebrities and our fascination with their lives. Recommended for larger public libraries.-Kellie Gillespie, City of Mesa Lib., AZ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.