The Simp

<p><b><i>''</i>A searing, hilarious farce''</b><br><b>Nikesh Shukla, author of <i>The Boxer</i></b><br><b><i><br>A novel without a hero. A hellscape with an infinity pool.</i></b><br><br>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.<br><br>His anonymous life working at Yogurtland, obsessively reading <i>Vanity Fair</i>, 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.<br><br> <i>The Simp</i> 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 <i>artist</i>; and Anna, his much younger wife who has ambitions of her own. <br><br>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.</p>