'A tender horror story, all the more haunting for being so familiar' Roisin Kiberd, author of The Disconnect

'Here is a new existence among the malls of instant consumerism' Alan Warner

The suburbs of Par Mars. Two shopping centres, rows of estates and thematically designed neighbourhoods.

Twenty-four-year-old Leen is going to open an ear-cleaning and massage studio in the Topic Heights Shopping Centre, taking her mother's Chinese ritual to the West to bring people back to their bodies.

But something is not quite right in Par Mars. Managers are being attacked, and when Leen befriends Jean Paul, a pharmacist who is obsessed with a cryptic online forum, she finds herself involved in a community that is intent on disrupting the routines of capitalism in increasingly troubling ways.

About the Author
Jamie Marina Lau is a multidisciplinary artist and author. Her first novel Pink Mountain on Locust Island was published in Australia in 2018 and received the 2018 Melbourne Prize for Literature's Readings Residency Award, was shortlisted for the 2019 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, the Readings Prize for New Australian Fiction, the 2019 Stella Prize and the 2019 ALS Gold Medal. Lau received the title of Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian Novelist in 2019 for her work.

Reviews
A tender horror story, all the more haunting for being so familiar, Gunk Baby captures the plight of the body - its fragility, its need for connection - in a world of surveillance and synthetic calm. Lau's voice is cool, precise yet unfailingly human, taking aim at mall culture, work culture and consumer culture, and revealing them as excuses we whisper to ourselves as we lurch slowly towards a luxurious void -- ROISIN KIBERD, author of The Disconnect
A new, detuned world, globalized but specific, casually weird, Jamie Marina Lau's sensibility is elliptical and it is unique; here is a new existence among the malls of instant consumerism -- ALAN WARNER
A dissociative meditation on a world that has come to feel increasingly meaningless, Lau's second novel harks back to an older era of Australian fiction . . . her prose combines the languid torpor of Michael Bible with the unease of Yoko Ogawa's more macabre work . . . She reminds us of the adventurousness that once saw local writers and directors win both sales and critical acclaim . . . Their spirits are sorely missing from the landscape today. Lau is to be commended for keeping them alive * GUARDIAN *
An original and unforgettable read * COSMOPOLITAN, Best New Fiction Books *
Jamie Marina Lau's style is captivating - you're drawn into the stagnant world of this Australian suburbia, and everything seems bizarre and off in a way that makes you feel constantly uncomfortable * INDEPENDENT *
A disorienting and sinister consumerist dystopia. Gunk Baby is the blackest sort of satire on post-industrial anomie, though it has a sharp sense of intellectual playfulness too . . . Fans of Bret Easton Ellis, J.G. Ballard or Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club will lap up the affectless nihilism of Lau's vision: it reopens a peculiar vein of postmodern darkness that seemed to have all but collapsed in Australian fiction * SYDNEY MORNING HERALD *
A book like this - that doesn't take the expected route, that gambles on a quiet and potentially difficult-to-access protagonist - is a gift . . . Lau's strength as an author shines in this space she has carved out for herself . . . Gunk baby, despite its surreal aura, exposes power structures and daily violence in a way that will make you think about the real world a little deeper * THE MONTHLY *
What a novel - as it is formally defined - should be: novel. Lau's talent is in excavating the psyche of her characters and their environments . . . Gunk Baby is the artistic equivalent of an ongoing disintegration, an experimental critique of the absurdities of consumer culture * SATURDAY PAPER *
The poison of capitalism and consumerism seeps through the pages of Gunk Baby so subtly that the reader barely notices until they are drowning in it . . . A writer of the Zeitgeist, Lau uses a distinctly 'online' voice that speaks to the disconnect of the present generation and to the bleak, capital-driven path humanity took to get there. An audacious, nihilistic novel * AUSTRALIA BOOK REVIEW *
Largely set in the hermetic world of a shopping centre, this clever narrative is cut through with incisive critiques of consumer culture and commentary on the hard work it takes to be in the company of other people. Lau's is an exciting and distinctive voice and Gunk Baby is our Fiction Book of the Month * READINGS Book of the Month *
Confident, assured and excitingly unique . . . While the ideas are firmly drawn from the real world, Lau deftly uses the dreamy yet tense atmosphere she has created to underscore the horror of the everyday. Readers who enjoyed Ottessa Moshfegh's Homesick for Another World or Yoko Ogawa's The Memory Police will find much to appreciate in Gunk Baby -- BOOKS AND PUBLISHING
Lau's dizzying prose is like a series of crazy neon-lit performance art -- The Stella Prize Judges on PINK MOUNTAIN ON LOCUST ISLAND
Gunk Baby plunges the reader into a stagnant Australian suburbia where everything seems bizarre and uncomfortable * SUNDAY POST *



Book Information
ISBN 9781474620918
Author Jamie Marina Lau
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Publisher Orion Publishing Co
Weight(grams) 280g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 128mm * 26mm