The word about town is that Madeline Cash has written the debut of the year. In the weeks since the American writer published her novel Lost Lambs at 29, she has been at the centre of rave reviews: The New Yorker praised her “vivid, breezy prose alight with casual wit” while The Times compared the book’s madcap plot, which folds marital problems and suburban girlhood in with terrorist plots and corporate malfeasance, to an episode of The Simpsons.
“It’s been overwhelming,” says Cash one sunny afternoon in London. “I’m a very private person and suddenly my name is in the newspaper.” It’s a precarious position she finds herself in: being a hyped author is thrilling but perilous. It is a vulnerable place to be, the spotlight on full blast and a target on your back. It helps, though, that her book is actually very good – a witty take on the age-old subject of American dysfunction that thrums with charm and originality.
