Evil Genius
A Novel
Published on 26. March 2026
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-0-06-346648-7 (ISBN)
Description
"[A] noir delight of a novel . . . . Evil Genius is deceptively light on its feet, skittering across the page to deliver its scorpion sting."
- New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
A Recommended Read from: Alta * Bustle * Electric Literature * Forbes * LitHub * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * New York Times * People * Vulture
It's 1974 and San Francisco is full of mystery and menace. Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent keeps telling herself how lucky she is to be working at the phone company and to be married to her Drew, a man who says he loves her. Celia's contentment with her little life is shattered, though, when a woman she knows from work is murdered in a love tryst gone awry. What would that be like, Celia wonders, to die for love-or to kill for love? What would it be like to live each moment passionately and with full awareness that each breath is bringing her closer to her last?
Before Celia knows it, her musings about love-and-death happenings are bleeding into daily life. Suddenly she's playing hooky from work and searching for a love tryst of her very own. She's practicing her marksmanship at a local gun range and thinking about how good it would feel to bury something sharp inside her domineering husband's ear. It's all pretend, though, until the night comes when Celia finally goes too far, and she and Drew are set on a deadly collision course.
Exhilarating, surreal, and bitingly clever, Evil Genius is a comic noir exploring obsession and desire-and what happens when a sweetly seditious young woman dares to imagine a better life.
- New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)
A Recommended Read from: Alta * Bustle * Electric Literature * Forbes * LitHub * Los Angeles Times * Kirkus * New York Times * People * Vulture
It's 1974 and San Francisco is full of mystery and menace. Nineteen-year-old Celia Dent keeps telling herself how lucky she is to be working at the phone company and to be married to her Drew, a man who says he loves her. Celia's contentment with her little life is shattered, though, when a woman she knows from work is murdered in a love tryst gone awry. What would that be like, Celia wonders, to die for love-or to kill for love? What would it be like to live each moment passionately and with full awareness that each breath is bringing her closer to her last?
Before Celia knows it, her musings about love-and-death happenings are bleeding into daily life. Suddenly she's playing hooky from work and searching for a love tryst of her very own. She's practicing her marksmanship at a local gun range and thinking about how good it would feel to bury something sharp inside her domineering husband's ear. It's all pretend, though, until the night comes when Celia finally goes too far, and she and Drew are set on a deadly collision course.
Exhilarating, surreal, and bitingly clever, Evil Genius is a comic noir exploring obsession and desire-and what happens when a sweetly seditious young woman dares to imagine a better life.
Reviews / Votes
"[A] noir delight of a novel . . . . Evil Genius is deceptively light on its feet, skittering across the page to deliver its scorpion sting." - New York Times Book Review (Editors' Choice)"This surreal, darkly hilarious novel about desire and the agency of women is delightfully original." - People
"[A] sharp (and brutally funny) book." - Real Simple
"Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen meets Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho meets Barbara Loden's Wanda meets all kinds of queer feminist theory in the latest from Claire Oshetsky. . . . Against the backdrop of 1970s San Francisco, the fantasy gets a little too real for a 19-year-old daydreamer and phone company employee. But don't worry, there's plenty of humor in between the murder." - Greta Rainbow, Bustle
"A tightly calibrated psychological thriller that benefits from the subtlety of its language." - Toronto Star
"Masterful. . . A remarkable exploration of domestic abuse, coming-of-age, and the freedom to build our own lives." - Booklist (starred review)
"This turn-of-the-thumbscrews-tense novel upends noir conventions." - Los Angeles Times ("10 Best Books to Read in February")
"Deadpan and strange." - Vulture ("8 New Books to Read This February")
"Oshetsky blends noir sensibilities with their signature surrealism, effortlessly slipping between dark humor and unnerving sensuality. The result is thrilling." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"This dark, unconventional comedy is quirky, surprising, and sharp." - Electric Literature
"Darkly charming, highly original, and fiendishly clever." - Kirkus (Starred Review)
"With their fourth novel, Evil Genius, Claire Oshetsky ascends to the throne as the monarch of unreliable narrators. . . . Although Evil Genius is set in mid-'70s San Francisco, it harks back to a noir convention established by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett nearly a hundred years ago . . . . But Oshetsky twists expectations in a manner uniquely their own. They adroitly draw upon literary tra-ditions without being bound by them, craft-ing a singular and captivating blend of noir and surrealism." - BookPage (starred review)
"A deliciously twisted send-up of standard mystery fare." - Alta
"Evil Genius is both wickedly dark and decidedly funny. . . . What could have been a straightforward satire of the confessional true-crime genre is actually much more profound . . . This is a fantastically entertaining portrait of an unforgettable character." - Bookreporter
"Oshetsky's novel deftly rattles toward an inevitable collision course for its characters. Readers who enjoy noir plots injected with comedy will enjoy." - Library Journal
"An enthralling, sharply funny, and unsettling read about abuse, murder, and desecrated Barbie dolls. Clever, biting, and impossible to put down." - Emily Austin, author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead
"In Evil Genius, Claire Oshetsky gives us the dark, brutal, and often hilarious voice of a character we see often, but so rarely get to hear from-the woman in a mid-20th century potboiler. Campy and exciting; surreal and sad. This is another stunner from a truly original writer." - Ainslie Hogarth, author of Motherthing
"Strange, savage, and so compelling, Evil Genius is a can't-stop-turning-the-pages story about murder and the phone company. Claire Oshetsky's singular voice brings Celia to crackling life, even as the people around her keep dropping dead." - Julia Phillips, author of Bear and Disappearing Earth
"Evil Genius will rip your lips in the best possible ways. This sly, understated, and disarmingly unhinged novel makes you love sharp Celia Dent as she spins deliriously out of control. Perfect for comic-horror girlies who read Moshfegh's Eileen and Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle and wanted more mayhem." - Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 147 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
300 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-06-346648-7 (9780063466487)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Claire Oshetsky is the author of Poor Deer and Chouette, which was a PEN/Faulkner Award nominee, the winner of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and the Barbellion Prize. They live in Santa Cruz, California.