Lean Cat, Savage Cat

A riotous and raunchy novel about a woman whose search for Romy Haag, one of David Bowie's former lovers, is sidelined when she falls into a deep obsession with a musician, who is often compared to Bowie, in pursuit of stardom

“Lean Cat, Savage Cat is the book that’s been missing from my reading habits: classically glamourous, timelessly seductive. Lauren J. Joseph is a wit and an assassin from one sentence to the next” —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

Alone at a party, sipping her celery sour, Charli knows she’s in a rut. Kicking around with the rest of London’s bohemian dropouts, she has no idea what to do with her arts degree and her research project on Romy Haag—the transsexual disco singer and long-time lover of David Bowie—has all but stalled out. But her life takes a turn when she bumps into the mysterious Alexander Geist. Androgynously, glamorously handsome, he feels something like a soul mate, another love once lost and now found. Naturally, when he leaves for Berlin, Charli follows.

There, at the center of the city’s febrile party scene, Charli and Alexander embark on their great project: turn Alexander into the greatest pop star since David Bowie. But Alexander is elusive, mercurial; Charli is in over her head before she realizes just how self-destructive her life has become under his spell.

Lean Cat, Savage Cat is Isherwood one-hundred years on, it's Nancy Mitford in the dark room, Bret Easton-Ellis amongst a raft of European low-lives scrabbling for success. It is the story of setting out in search of one thing and finding yourself in possession of something quite different, a book about obsession and excess, doppelgängers and disassociation, fame and fandom, the tyrannical return of unprocessed grief, and the terrible things we do to feel loved.Named a Most Anticipated Book by The Orange County Register, Playboy, Autostraddle, Literary Hub, & The Millions

"This novel is chock full of good old-fashioned glamor, seduction, and style." —Sophia June, Playboy

"Darkly funny and hugely entertaining . . . Lean Cat, Savage Cat is a stylish novel that blends humour, chaos, and emotional depth. It’s also highly filmic—perfect for Emerald Fennell. The next Saltburn, perhaps?" —Hilary Fennell, The Irish Independent

"A complex, compelling and wildly entertaining novel which examines obsession, the notion of doppelgängers, ambition, identity, and how the individual can come to define themselves through others. It’s a wonderfully amorphous read—just when you think it’s one thing it becomes another." —Alistair Braidwood, The Skinny

"A salacious romp of breathtaking self-invention and spectacular self-destruction." —Service95

"A strange and wild ride in the best way." —Autostraddle

"An artist’s bohemian existence in Berlin implodes in this exquisite novel . . . Joseph’s pitch-perfect voice propels Charli’s story toward its bitter end, and her keen eye captures both the hardscrabble glamour of her characters’ lives and the dark underside of a dream come true. This fierce and original narrative has the feel of a classic." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"[A] fun and textured novel . . . With the urgency of these unforgettable characters, Joseph writes a fever dream about all the rusted and rare pieces of ourselves that shake loose when carried away." —Booklist

"[An] edgy, often viciously funny romp of a novel . . . For readers in the know, a sure thrill; for the rest, a book that can make you slightly cooler just by reading it." —Kirkus Reviews

“Lean Cat, Savage Cat is the book that’s been missing from my reading habits: classically glamorous, timelessly seductive. Lauren J. Joseph is a wit and an assassin from one sentence to the next.” —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

"In this phantasmagoric folie à deux through a Berlin thick with historical echo and epic, decadent sex, Lauren J. Joseph gives a sharp new voice to the transsexual muse, on whose devotional labor the world of culture turns." —Jeanne Thornton, author of A/S/L

“Lean Cat, Savage Cat is an erotic spectacular of self-creation and spiralling disintegration: a wunderkammer of spoiling promise that combines the mounting tension of The Talented Mr. Ripley with the bleak, exquisite social comedy of Isherwood and Waugh, confirming the gimlet-eyed brilliance of Lauren J. Joseph." —Olivia Laing, author of The Garden Against Time

"Even though I know better, Lauren J. Joseph's dangerously stylish and relentlessly sexy novel made me long for wild nights among Berlin’s demi-mondaines: the glittering chaos, the glamour of bad decisions, the drugs and clubs and would-be Bowies with their would-be Romy Haags. I was completely delighted and impressed by the level of filth!" —Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

"No one is doing it like Lauren, a cool old soul with a refreshingly original sensibility. With its sexy humor, relentless pacing, and enchanting balance of silly and sinister, Lean Cat, Savage Cat is (in appropriately cinematic terms) a screwball noir that deserves your full attention." —Davey Davis, author of X and Casanova 20: Or, Hot World

"Lauren J. Joseph’s sharp wit and tantalizing storytelling carried me deep into Berlin’s alluring and chaotic nightlife. A glamourous, seductive novel about obsession, self-destruction, and, ultimately, self-discovery." —Carter Sickels, author of The Prettiest StarLAUREN J. JOSEPH (formerly La JohnJoseph) is a British born American-educated artist and writer, who works at the intersection of video, text, and live performance. She has written extensively on contemporary culture, art, performance, pornography, gender theory and the Golden Age of Hollywood, contributing in print and online to publications including iD, The Independent, Sleek, The Guardian, Time Out, Attitude, Amuse, Siegessäule, Parterre de Rois, Charleston Press, and the ‘zines Birdsong, Fat Zine, 21st Century Queer Artists Identify Themselves, and Not Here: An Anthology of Queer Loneliness. She has also authored the experimental prose work Everything Must Go (ITNA Press in 2014), and the plays, A Generous Lover and Boy in a Dress, which were published by Oberon in 2019. She has presented performances at the Royal Opera House; Deutsche Oper; Bristol Old Vic; Barbican; Schaubühne; Art Basel Hong Kong; SF MoMA; Dixon Place, NY; Martin-Gropius Bau; Fancy Him, Tokyo; La Java, Paris; and Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói. Her fine artwork has been shown in group exhibitions in the UK, US, Germany and Mexico.