A COSMOPOLITAN BEST SUMMER READ
'Devastating and alluring' Monica Heisey, author of Really Good, Actually
'Impossible to put down' Madeline Cash, author of Lost Lambs
'Smart, sad, sexy' Philippa Snow, author of It's Terrible the Things I Have to Do To Be Me
'Tackles the sticky subjects of female sexuality, objectification and desire with a smoothness that appears effortless' Coco Mellors, author of Blue Sisters
Los Angeles, 1982: best friends Jude and Winnie are eighteen and working at a strip club. Soon they progress to modelling for Penthouse and Hustler, then to shooting hardcore porn. Dazzled by the drugs, sex and parties their new life offers, they are also beset by sexism, bitter competition and the precarity of life on the margins. When their friendship ends in recrimination and a dramatic act of betrayal, Jude goes missing and Winnie can find no trace of her.
Thirty years later, newly divorced and down on her luck, Winnie is ready to face her past. Determined to solve the mystery of what happened to Jude, she sets out to brave the dark underbelly of the adult industry. What follows is a gutsy, propulsive look at sex and power that builds to an unforgettable revelation about love.
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
ISBN: 9780349019932
Number of pages: 368
Dimensions: 236 x 158 x 36 mm
Weight: 600 g
Language: English
A propulsive and surprisingly tender novel about two teens who find themselves drawn into the 1980s LA porn industry - Otegha Uwagba, Grazia
Exciting and gritty without feeling lurid, and a moving ode to the value of a female friendship. It's a knockout - Publishers Weekly
An extraordinary, sordidly exciting, fascinating and original story ... biting but archetypal, sleazy and uneasy, dangerous and ambitious - Bidisha
Allie's writing possesses a rare combination of deep compassion, prescient insight, and just plain coolness that I'm in awe of. She tackles the sticky subjects of female sexuality, objectification and desire with a smoothness that appears effortless on the page, but which I know is born from an obsessive refining of both thought and craft. She has put into words things I have felt but been unable to articulate more times than I can count - Coco Mellors, author of Blue Sisters
Smart, sad, sexy, and at times surprisingly sweet, Allie Rowbottom's Lovers XXX does for the stars of adult filmmaking what her previous novel Aesthetica did for cosmetically-enhanced influencers: it casts a humanising spell, transforming the women at its centre from mere naked flesh into something more like real flesh and blood. Beneath all that silicone and slickness, Rowbottom locates a warm, beating heart - Philippa Snow, author of It's Terrible the Things I Have To Do To Be Me
Lovers XXX is Persona set in the 80s porn world - thrillingly literate; thrillingly sleazy - Lili Anolik, author of Didion and Babitz
You're thrown right into Lovers XXX and it doesn't stop. Allie writes about desire, survival, intimacy and exploitation with a kind of feral tenderness. She turns stick-ups, strip clubs and motel rooms into a fever dream that makes ruin look romantic. Impossible to put down! - Madeline Cash, author of Lost Lambs
Pulsing and propulsive, Lovers XXX is a fever dream and love song, an ode to the gritty places we find solace and sustenance and glimpses of sublimity: cold fries and canned Screwdrivers, strip malls in the heat and diners at midnight, dusk light glinting off hubcaps on the 101 - Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters
Allie Rowbottom’s Lovers XXX follows Jude and Winnie, two young women who become caught up in the San Fernando Valley porn industry during its 1980s boom years. What begins as a story of friendship, ambition and... More
I loved this book. An addictive and engaging story about best friends Jude and Winnie, two young girls running away from difficult childhood homes with aspirations to become famous writers, like Didion and Babitz, but... More
Allie Rowbottom's Lovers XXX is well written, raw, emotional and human tale of two young friends, Jude and Winnie, caught up in the early '80s porn scene. It dives straight in with the grit of sex, hard... More
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