Generation Loss
Elizabeth Hand

‘Ferocious, aching with compassion and cruelly brilliant.’
– Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love

‘Rasps with gritty authenticity.' 
– NPR

‘Explores the narrow boundary between artistic genius and madness in this gritty, profoundly unsettling literary thriller.’
– Publishers Weekly

‘Cass is the definition of an “unlikable” character. She’s gnarly, nihilistic, and makes confusing decisions driven purely by the strength of her will. As a true punk rocker, she sees what the mainstream doesn’t—she zeroes in on the blind spots and is relentless in her pursuit to uncover them. Such is the beauty of a character with absolutely nothing to lose.’
– Crime Reads

Cass Neary is not afraid of living on the edge. A photographer whose shots of New York's punk scene in the seventies briefly earned her fame, caché, and a cultish kind of cool, Cass has spent much of her life since then in the dark, watching and waiting. But thirty years later she is alone, adrift, and falling rapidly into oblivion. 

So when an old acquaintance asks her to interview a fellow photographer – a notorious recluse who lives on an island off the coast of Maine – she accepts. There, she stumbles across a decades-old crime still claiming new victims. Amid this inhospitable hinterland, Cass comes to realise that her final shot might also be her shot at redemption. 

First published in 2007, Generation Loss is a mesmerizing literary crime thriller from the author of A Haunting on the Hill.

Praise for Generation Loss

Generation Loss rasps with gritty authenticity, from the copious references to artists like Iggy Pop and the Ramones to the way Cass' hardcore attraction to damage and destruction propels her deep into the book's maze of murder and secrets.
– NPR

Fiercely frightening yet hauntingly beautiful.
– Tess Gerritsen

Intense and atmospheric, Generation Loss is an inventive brew of postpunk attitude and dark mystery. Elizabeth Hand writes with craftsmanship and passion.
– George Pelecanos

 A skin blistering crime novel as edgy and black as dried blood on a moonlit night.
– Robert Crais

Lucid and beautifully rendered. Great, unforgiving wilderness, a vanished teenager, an excellent villain, and an obsession with art that shades into death: what else do you need?
– Brian Evenson

Although Generation Loss moves like a thriller, it detonates with greater resound. It's a dark and beautiful novel.
– The Washington Post Book Review

This smart, dark, literary thriller will keep you up at night.
– Megan Sullivan, Boston Globe

'A spectacular example how to write a thriller.’
– Speculiction

About the Author

Elizabeth Hand is the author of twenty multiple-award-winning novels and five collections of short fiction.  Her most recent book, A Haunting on the Hill, was named one of 2023’s best novels by the Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Harper’s Bazaar.  She’s been a longtime contributor of book reviews to the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, and the Boston Review, among many others.  Her acclaimed novels featuring Cass Neary, “one of noir’s great antiheroes" [Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love] have been translated into multiple languages, and are being developed for a major television series.  She divides her time between the last of Maine and North London.

Paperback ISBN: 9781914391323

Ebook ISBN: 9781914391330

Publication date: September 2024

Formats: Paperback / eBook