Perfect for fans of Dave Eggers, Martin Amis, and David Foster Wallace, this fearlessly funny, outrageously inventive dark comedy about two lifelong friends—one a failed-writer-turned-reluctant-cop, the other an unlucky criminal—is “a delightful literary novel” (Psychology Today) from Man Booker Prize finalist Steve Toltz.

Liam is a struggling writer and a failing cop. Aldo, his best friend and muse, is a haplessly criminal entrepreneur with an uncanny knack for disaster. As Aldo’s luck worsens, Liam is inspired to base his next book on his best friend’s exponential misfortunes and hopeless quest to win back his one great love: his ex-wife, Stella. What begins as an attempt to make sense of Aldo’s mishaps spirals into a profound story of faith and friendship.

“Steve Toltz channels a poet’s delight in crafting the perfect phrase on every highly quotable page” (Publishers Weekly). With the same originality, brilliance, and buoyancy that catapulted his first novel, A Fraction of the Whole, onto prize lists around the world, Toltz has created a rousing, hysterically funny but unapologetically dark satire about love, faith, friendship, and the artist’s obligation to his muse. Quicksand is a subversive portrait of twenty-first-century society in all its hypocrisy and absurdity that “confounds and astonishes in equal measure, often on the same page…A tour de force” (Australian Book Review).