Bring the House Down
A Novel
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3.4 • 31 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
You’d never guess that an exploration of art criticism could make for such a wild, unputdownable novel. Theatre critic Alex is renowned for his scathing reviews. But Hayley doesn’t know that when she sleeps with him mere hours after he’s ripped apart her one-woman show in print. So, with loads of performances still booked, she rethinks the show…to make it about him. The way Hayley takes Alex down is brutally satisfying—at first. She doesn’t just destroy him as a critic but as a person. But as other performers who’ve been hurt by Alex speak up and Hayley’s show becomes a sensation, author Charlotte Runcie alludes to some bigger questions. After all, the same people who devoured Alex’s reviews are the ones devouring his ruination—people just love to see someone go down in flames. There are two sides to this juicy story—and both of them are unhinged.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The clever U.S. debut from British journalist Runcie explores a messy situation involving a performer and her critic during the Edinburgh Fringe arts festival. Alex Lyon, a senior editor at a London newspaper, writes a scathing anonymous review of Haley Sinclair's one-woman show, Climate Emergence–She. Later that night, Alex meets Haley randomly at a pub and they sleep together—without her knowing about his takedown, which will be published in the morning. When junior writer Sophie Rigden, a friend of Alex's, accidentally outs him as the author of the hit piece, an enraged Haley changes her entire show into a statement about Alex's behavior. As the Fringe Festival wears on, The Alex Lyons Experience gains more followers and momentum, with people coming forward to share the terrible things Alex has done, from being rude to his coworkers to sleeping with his best friend's sister. Sophie stands by Alex as the conflict escalates while dealing with her own difficulties as a new mother, her grief over her mother's recent death, and her husband's infidelity, which leads her to make some questionable decisions of her own. Throughout, Runcie takes a thought-provoking look at art's complex relationship with criticism and public outrage. This dramedy packs a punch.
