Black Bag

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2026

“In a wonderfully quirky campus novel, Kennard combines an absurd experiment with a moving story about human frailty, passion, confusion and identity. There’s something for everyone here.” —The Booker Prize

“The funniest and smartest novel I’ve read in a while.” —Zadie Smith

“Kennard is a poet by trade and it shows. He gives several flamboyant inner monologues to a Border collie, and an inspired riff on Justine’s ‘atavastic’ personal hygiene products reads like a description of Ziggy Stardust’s Dopp kit. The plot, such as it is, often veers off in odd and cosmic directions. But I like this book’s verve and style, and I often agreed with the dog.” —New York Times

“[A] delightful and dark picaresque . . . Kennard entertainingly pokes and prods at conceptions of identity, whether in sexual relationships or online personae. It’s a hoot.” —Publishers Weekly

“A genre-defying, big-swing of a novel with a Kafkaesque premise . . . a sharply funny meditation on masculinity, academia, the modern attention economy, and the quiet desperation of everyday life.” —Andrew Boryga, author of Victim

“An unintended tonic to the heavily romanticised dark academia trend, the novel is a funny, often awkward exploration of masculinity, attraction and the overlapping Venn diagram of higher education and the internet.” —The Observer

“Irreverent and honest, Black Bag is an answer to the ‘masculinity crisis’ that suggests the solution is a lot easier than it appears.” —OurCulture Mag (Most Anticipated Books of Spring 2026)

“A comedic masterpiece. Part SNL sketch, part Spike Jonze film.” —Ben Purkert, author of The Men Can’t Be Saved

“As surreal and ambitious as Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, only written by someone with the comic instincts of Peep Show’s Jesse Armstrong. But beneath the playfulness lies a thoughtful, tender meditation on the difficulty of being a man in the modern world: how to find purpose, how to make art that matters, and how to connect with other people when you suspect you might not possess a fully formed self to offer them. In Kennard’s hands, the bag contains a lot . . . A brilliant comic tour de force.” —The Sunday Times

“What’s most extraordinary about Black Bag isn’t just its wry discursions to the psychology classroom, the sex dungeon, or the Swedish sawmill of the mind—though these are rendered with such phosphorescent wit that I could’ve read a book’s worth of each. In Black Bag, we’re treated to an uncommonly funny and deeply necessary snapshot of masculinity no more objectionable nor perfect than a black leather bag. Whoever thinks men aren’t writing fiction clearly needs to read Luke Kennard.” —Rafael Frumkin, author of Confidence

“I would swear this in a court of law: Luke Kennard’s Black Bag made me laugh aloud dozens and dozens of times. It’s brilliant, a triumph of a book . . . I loved its inventive originality, and its ambition: it is very powerfully worth your time.” —Guardian

“A wryly subversive glimpse into the inner life of an actor who barely perceives how truly lost he is. It’s clever, moving, biting, rich with integrity, and wildly funny.” —Sierra Greer, award-winning author of Annie Bot

“A fun novel that will make readers laugh, think, and possibly yearn for the safety of their own comforting sack.” —Washington Independent Review of Books

“How much can you fit in a large leather satchel? Luke Kennard suggests, when said bag is zipped up around the body of an out-of-work actor trying to find his way, the answer is near infinite: humor, dear friendship, frustrated desire, a talking dog, a wad of cash, hallucinogens, ambition, AI, humility, and no shortage of heart. Black Bag carried me along with a tremendously deft hand: it had me laughing, unnerved, and hopeful as it galloped through a true and strange world. This book left me reckoning with what to make of the society outside my proverbial eye slits, and what, with some effort, we might make of it still.” —Emily Nemens, bestselling author of The Cactus League

“Touching and funny . . . Kennard is the literary heir to Tom Sharpe. Rather than sticking to the confines of a campus novel, Black Bag slides into a caper of sorts, one involving cryptocurrency prospectors, proto-cultists and fetishists of various kinds. There is even a comic set piece involving a swan pedalo. However, the great achievement of the novel is its heartfelt portrayal of a hapless all-too-human character hidden beneath a mysterious carapace.” —The Financial Times

“Black Bag isn’t ostensibly about politics, but good fiction taps into the zeitgeist . . . A novel centered entirely on the experiment would be minimalist, but Black Bag sprawls because Kennard is enjoying himself.”—Blake Morrison, London Review of Books

“A stylish, fun, and surprisingly incisive examination of masculinity, modernity, and attempting to make a living as a creative. It’s also a weird little book about and, presumably for, sickos. Reading it hits like a concussion that makes you stranger but more compassionate. Easily the sharpest, funniest thing I’ve read all year.” —Calvin Kasulke, author of Several People Are Typing

“Equal parts charming and unhinged, Black Bag is the perfect novel for anyone who has ever felt like ‘someone is constantly slapping me in the stomach with an old brown shoe.’ This is one of hundreds (thousands?) of quotable lines from an immensely talented writer to watch. Luke Kennard, I will follow you anywhere.” —Ruth Madievsky, bestselling and award-winning author of All Night Pharmacy

“The novel is a triumph of satirical humor.” —Rice Thresher