'A searing, hilarious farce'

Nikesh Shukla, author of The Boxer

A novel without a hero. A hellscape with an infinity pool.

Raj Ladlani is one of thousands in LA: an unemployable actor. He has reasons to believe he is spectacularly talented (his beloved acting coach Anthony says so), a legend in every way but for the success.

His anonymous life working at Yogurtland, obsessively reading Vanity Fair, and fantasizing about stardom, comes to an end when he answers a job ad detailing a relentless, laughable parade of menial responsibilities for a 'Hollywood Family'. So begins the astonishing decline and fall of Raj Ladlani.

The Simp tells the story of Raj's momentous employment and the destruction that follows in the wake of his time with the with the H Family: Jim, a macho director determined to prove himself as an artist; and Anna, his much younger wife who has ambitions of her own.

And when the job reveals itself to be an absurdist walk through affluent domestic chaos and misguided engagements with identity politics, Raj might be about to lose it - on a very public stage.