The Audacity

A bracing satire about the implosion of a Theranos-like company, a collapsing marriage, and a billionaires’ “philanthropy summit,” for fans of Hari Kunzru and The White Lotus . In 72 hours, a blockbuster exposé will reveal Victoria Stevens’s multibillion-dollar startup as a massive fraud. And Victoria has gone missing. Has she faked her death, leaving her husband, Guy Sarvananthan, to face the fallout— and potential jail time? Should Guy flee to his native Sri Lanka, an outcast and a failure? Or embrace denial? Opting for the latter, he takes the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, where the 0.0001% have gathered to decide which one of the world’s biggest problems to “eradicate forever.” Guy drinks and drugs his way into oblivion, through manicured jungles and aboard superyachts, amid captains of industry, legions of staff, and unlikely saboteurs. Meanwhile, Victoria narrates her side of... A bracing satire about the implosion of a Theranos-like company, a collapsing marriage, and a billionaires'“philanthropy summit,” for fans of Hari Kunzru and The White Lotus.In 72 hours, a blockbuster exposé will reveal Victoria Stevens's multibillion-dollar startup as a massive fraud. And Victoria has gone missing. Has she faked her death, leaving her husband, Guy Sarvananthan, to face the fallout— and potential jail time? Should Guy flee to his native Sri Lanka, an outcast and a failure? Or embrace denial? Opting for the latter, he takes the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, where the 0.0001% have gathered to decide which one of the world's biggest problems to “eradicate forever.” Guy drinks and drugs his way into oblivion, through manicured jungles and aboard superyachts, amid captains of industry, legions of staff, and unlikely saboteurs. Meanwhile, Victoria narrates her side of the story from an off-the-grid location in the California desert. In scribbled diary entries shot through with cultish self-help mantras, she plots her comeback, confident she'll prove everyone wrong. Again. Ryan Chapman's incisive novel is a swan dive into the abyss and “Martin Amis's Money for really late, late capitalism” (Amitava Kumar, author of A Time Outside This Time). A bracing satire about the implosion of a Theranos-like company, the end of a relationship, and life for the .001% under late-stage capitalism, for fans of Hari Kunzru and The Dropout. In a short 72 hours, Victoria Stevens multibillion-dollar startup will be exposed as a massive fraud, leaving her husband and collaborator Guy Sarvananthan to make one of two either pick up the pieces and reinvent himself, or return to his native Sri Lanka as an outcast and a failure. While V decides her best course of action is to disappear herself from the worldtake a much-needed pause by faking her own deathGuy decides he wont be buckling to the conditions of Vs self-created demise. He chooses option screw it, take the corporate jet to a private Caribbean island, and obscure all sense of regret by having every drink, drug, and debauched interaction he can find. As Guy drunkenly wanders the gilded hallways and sleek yachts of a tropical philanthropy summit for the 0.001%, V narrates her side of the story from an off-grid cabin in the California desert. But how long can this fragile arrangement last before the whole house of cards comes tumbling down? Ryan Chapmans hilarious, incisive debut is the high-octane tragicomedy of two high-flying grifters facing their imminent downfall.