The Following: A Novel
$14.99-
A sweeping political novel about the price women pay for fame, happiness, and autonomy, in a tumultuous world that seeks to destroy them
On an ordinary winter afternoon, impossibly glamorous political wife Laura Barnett gathers her passport and cash, lights her kitchen on fire, and vanishes. Laura’s escape ignites a media frenzy — soon she is hotly pursued by a group of devoted superfans tracking her movements using a social media network dedicated to her disappearance. They call themselves the Following.
Meanwhile, Laura drifts from Spain, through Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, and lastly Sierra Leone as she attempts to slip from the public’s gaze, all the while navigating conflict zones and contending with her visible privilege. Traveling south by yacht, bus, and dusty poda poda while finding friends and enemies in the deserts, beaches, and border towns of North and West Africa, Laura transforms into a woman whose survival depends on her cunning and charm, and whose motives are deeply contrary to the good wife past she has left behind. But still her Following refuses to relinquish their pursuit.
With gripping and clear-eyed prose, The Following details Laura’s fraught marriage in the public eye, her cross-continental escape, and the collective compulsion to follow a woman who is both revered and infamous, and refuses to be found. The Following is a harrowing, urgent novel examining the cost contemporary women pay for true freedom, the cultural and societal differences between the Global North and South, and the way 21st-century fame — both invited and uninvited — poisons our most intimate relationships.
Available April 6, 2027. PRE-ORDER NOW!
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Leah Bailly has a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California and an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Her writing has won recognition from MacDowell, Yaddo, Vermont Studio Centre, and elsewhere. She lives on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish First Nations of Vancouver, Canada.
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Published: April 2027
ISBN: 9781770418882
Dimensions: 5.5 x 8.5 in.
Pages: 264
Reviews
“The Following traverses the human psyche as much as it does the deserts and checkpoints of West Africa. Set amidst a backdrop of collective obsession in this age of parasocial surveillance, this captivating story explores our most intrinsic urges: to escape, to find meaning, to feel wholly alive.” — Eddy Boudel Tan, author of The Tiger and the Cosmonaut
“The brilliance here is in the writing, and in the various voices of the gawkers and devotees and the anonymous hangers-on. In the end, the heart leaps at the love of place. A gorgeous book.” — David Bergen, author of Days of Feasting and Rejoicing
“The Following burns with urgency and intelligence as it examines privilege and inequality, internet culture, obsession, and the ways that femininity is performed and policed in every corner of this patriarchal world. A totally original novel that follows one woman’s journey but ultimately asks us to examine ourselves.” — Deborah Willis, author of Girlfriend on Mars
“We, just like the Following, are taken through a series of geographies as Laura seeks refuge from them and us. In this exciting how-done-it, we finally crash into the exhausting reality of an artist who does not want to be a muse, and we’re complicit. The Following is a shocking and satisfying read.” — Otoniya J. Okot Bitek, author of We, the Kindling
“The Following is a confident and beautifully layered novel, and Bailly zooms close and then far with startling skill, allowing us access to intimate voices and places, coupled with an extraordinary global awareness.” — Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade