Charli has finished art school and now has no idea what to do with her life. She's broke, disillusioned and her flatmates hate her. One night at a bar in Soho, however, everything changes when she first encounters the charismatic musician Alexander Geist. Androgynous, glamorously handsome, mysterious and just a little sinister, he feels something like a soul mate; and so when he heads off to Berlin, Charli follows.
There, at the centre of the city's febrile party scene, Charli and Alexander embark on their great project: to make Alexander into the biggest star since David Bowie. But Alexander is elusive, mercurial; and Charli is in over her head before she realises just how self-destructive her life has become under his spell.
A story of obsession and excess, doppelgängers and disassociation, fame and the terrible things we do to feel loved, Lean Cat, Savage Cat is an unforgettable novel from one of the most exciting writers at work today.
-
Lauren J. Joseph is the author of the novel At Certain Points We Touch which was an Observer debut of the year. Her most recent book Lean Cat, Savage Cat was published in February by Bloomsbury and may well be the only new release of 2026 to feature in both Playboy and Town & Country. Other work includes the experimental prose volume, Everything Must Go (ITNA), and the plays A Generous Lover (Oberon). Lauren regularly reviews for the Guardian and the Observer with recent non-fiction writing also appearing in Granta, Refinery, AutoStraddle, Vittles, The Erotic Review and Tate Etc.
Demi Anter is an Austrian-American writer, performer and facilitator. Appearances include Glastonbury Festival, Poetry Ireland, and the Scottish Storytelling Centre, with work featured in The Times (UK), Magma, Cheerio, Radio 4, BBC Radio London and others. Her debut collection, Small Machine, was shortlisted for the 2022 Poetry Book Awards and chronicles her early years in Berlin. She regularly teaches creative writing for the Royal National Theatre and is the creator of the “Writing Berlin" course, a deep dive into contemporary Berlin literature. In 2023 and 2026, Demi presented "Bowie in Berlin" alongside travel writer Rory MacLean, a literary tribute to their artistic hero and his impact on Berliners, fifty years on.
-