
Bring the House Down
A Novel
Charlotte Runcie(Author)
Doubleday & Co Inc. (Publisher)
Published on 8. July 2025
Book
Hardback
304 pages
978-0-385-55107-6 (ISBN)
Description
ONE OF GLAMOUR'S BEST BOOKS FOR BOOK CLUBS - A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox.
A WASHINGTON POST AND NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
"Excellent...brilliant...a fiery reminder that we still have so far to go when it comes to men behaving poorly and getting away with it."--LitHub "A binge-worthy novel that explores our obsessions, our inner critic, and who we think we are in person and in print. Intimate, real, and really funny. This one has teeth." --Kiley Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Come and Get It and Such a Fun Age Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance--the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn't deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair's show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress. Unaware that she's gone home with the theater critic who's just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she's not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself--entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story. A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
Random House USA Inc
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 212 mm
Width: 139 mm
Thickness: 37 mm
Weight
456 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-385-55107-6 (9780385551076)
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
Person
CHARLOTTE RUNCIE was most recently the Daily Telegraph's radio critic and senior arts columnist. She has also written for magazines and newspapers including the Times and the Guardian, spending years in the culture trenches reviewing shows at the Edinburgh Festival. A graduate of Cambridge University, Charlotte was longlisted for the 2023 Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and Bridport Prize, and was a Foyle Young Poet of the Year.