With or Without You by Lauren Sanders

Starred Review. In Sanders’s pulpy debut, Kamikaze Lust (winner of a 2000 Lambda Literary Award), the author skewered stereotypes of porn stars and lesbians while scrutinizing perceptions of moral values. Her vibrant, vigorous second novel is a sendup of America’s obsession with pop culture, B-list celebrities and prison life, peopled by a cast of lonely, desperate characters whose only fault is that they love too much. In the summer of 1987, 18-year-old Lillian G. Speck catapults to tabloid fame after she shoots and kills Brooke Harrison, a soap star she has long worshipped. Narrated by Lillian from prison, the novel is part journal, part suicide note and part psychological suspense story, tracing Lillian’s path from poor little rich kid to killer. Neglected by her heedless parents, who are caught up in the drug excesses of the 1980s, Lillian is a child with sociopathic tendencies who is desperate for love and attention. Her story is artfully juxtaposed with that of Brooke Harrison’s mother, who reveals the seamy side of a Hollywood inhabited by plastic people who have too much money and can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction. In lyrical, potent prose, Sanders navigates the terrain of loneliness, obsession and desperation with the same skillful precision as her vulnerable, calculating protagonist.

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