The Warhol Gang

My second novel. Media reviews and links to order the book are below.

Trotsky works for a neuromarketing company that scans his brain to test new products. Only his name isn’t really Trotsky — that’s a code name he’s forced to use at work. And the products aren’t real — they’re just hologram prototypes. Trapped in an increasingly unreal world that leaves him haunted by hallucinations, Trotsky goes in search of something genuine. Instead, he finds Holiday, a wannabe actress who fakes accidents for insurance settlements but who dreams of stardom. She leads him into an underground society of anti-corporate activists and into a series of dangerous encounters, one of which turns deadly. Discovered by the media, they are dubbed the Warhol Gang. At first Holiday and Trotsky embrace their notoriety and fame, but they’re forced to confront their own desires and needs — and differences — when the Warhol Gang takes on a life of its own and the body count rises.

The Warhol Gang is a black comedy for anyone who’s ever been trapped in an endless mall or fantasized about taking revenge on everyone in the office.

The Warhol Gang media:

“A violent, darkly comic satire of our media-saturated society”: The Globe and Mail
An “entertainingly bizarre futuristic tale of loneliness”: The Winnipeg Free Press
“Denis Johnson stomping Chuck Palahniuk into William Gibson while Kurt Vonnegut cheers him on”: Bookninja
“I’m the x-ray technician”: Interview with Maisonneuve
“It’s like No Logo on acid”: Underground Book Club
“A biting satire of consumerism, capitalism, affluenza, and fame”: Quill & Quire review
“Every word is there for a reason”: Review from critic Ryan Bigge, who also throws in a review of Please he wrote for the Toronto Star
“A rallying point for a new generation of young fans crying out for a satire to call their own”: Shelf Monkey review
“A dystopian world that feels uncomfortably familiar”: failing the rorschach test review
“One of the finest, and most important, Canadian novels in recent memory”: Edmonton Journal review — reprinted in the Calgary Herald, Vancouver Sun, and Saskatoon Star-Phoenix
“Puts the dead back in deadpan”: Review from the Montreal Gazette — reprinted in the Ottawa Citizen
“A disorienting (and chest-thumping) take on consumer culture”: Eye Weekly
“A nightmare that will linger for days”: The Telegraph-Journal
“A strange and original world”: Eye Weekly review
one of the National Post’s most anticipated books of 2010
My guest posts at the National Post
“Get Me Rewrite”: An essay at the Globe and Mail in which I discuss the editing process for The Warhol Gang — and why I switched it from third person to first person without telling anyone.
“Mad at the Mad Men”: Interview with the National Post