Kill Dick
A Novel
by Luke Goebel
You must sign in to see if this title is available for request. Sign In or Register Now
Send NetGalley books directly to your Kindle or Kindle app
1
To read on a Kindle or Kindle app, please add kindle@netgalley.com as an approved email address to receive files in your Amazon account. Click here for step-by-step instructions.
2
Also find your Kindle email address within your Amazon account, and enter it here.
Pub Date Apr 14 2026 | Archive Date May 14 2026
Talking about this book? Use #KillDick #NetGalley. More hashtag tips!
Description
ACCLAIMED AUTHOR OF FOURTEEN STORIES, NONE OF THEM ARE YOURS, CO-WRITER of the films CAUSEWAY and EILEEN
RECIPIENT OF PRESTIGIOUS RONALD SUKENICK INNOVATIVE FICTION PRIZE AND JOAN SCOTT MEMORIAL FICTION AWARD
“LIT HUB and PLAYBOY’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026”
"Marked by deliberate instability, the ambitious satirical novel Kill Dick skewers contemporary literary seriousness even as it participates in it." —Foreword Reviews
A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles, where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.
At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be coasting: she’s an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie’s ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to home: her father’s ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.
Then there’s Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it’s almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.
Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction.
Advance Praise
“Finally, a book brave enough to say what we’ve all been thinking: Dick has got to go.”
—Lukas Gage
“If this book were any better, I’d cut my own head off.”
—Ottessa Moshfegh, author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation
“Luke Goebel’s Kill Dick is a hypnotic descent into wealth, chaos, and the deranged art of self-destruction. It’s like if Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson had a love child raised on Oxy and existential dread—impossible to look away from. The prose moves like stolen cash; the world is decadent and rotting at the edges. Honestly, if you’re not reading this book, what are you doing? Probably something dull and unpaid. Consider this your invitation to the party—just don’t expect to leave unscathed.”
—Anna Delvey
“Luke Goebel’s delirious debut novel festers in the sun-sick, dissociative Southern California of Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. In Kill Dick, Los Angeles is hell, and Susie Vogelman is its most reluctant angel: vacant, brilliant, heartbreaking.”
—Anna Dorn, author of The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey
“…engrossing, fanatical, full of private grief, and yet charismatic, tender, and intrepid, aglow with more spirit than most Americans have the right to wield.”
―Blake Butler, author of Molly, Alice Knott, There Is No Year, 300,000,000 and Nothing
“Someone I think I can trust.”
— Giancarlo DiTrapano, founder of The New York Tyrant and Tyrant Books
“Kill Dick is a fever dream. Luke Goebel perfectly captures the consciousness of a certain kind of woman—raw, lonely, desperate, and cinematic. Full of grief and longing, it’s got some of the most unforgettable sentences I’ve ever read. This book makes me want to write a crime novel, move to L.A., or maybe just become a killer. Goebel is something else.”
—Harriet Armstrong, author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies
“Stunning . . . Part noir thriller, part searing social commentary, Kill Dick follows a young artist-turned-addict through the dark, unforgiving, and stratified streets of Los Angeles as she confronts her father’s complicity in the opioid epidemic. In bleak, beautiful prose, Luke Goebel weaves together a narrative that exposes the savage heart of privilege and power, raising questions about truth, memory, and the nature of storytelling itself. With haunting descriptions of a city literally and metaphorically aflame, Kill Dick captures the burning zeitgeist of our time.”
—Kimberly King Parsons
“From Brentwood to Thai Town, West Adams to Skid Row, Luke Goebel’s irresistible Kill Dick draws a deranged—and yet curiously, charmingly relaxed–map of Los Angeles, coming off like a sun-dappled, shaggy cousin of The Shards. Like Eve Babitz before him, he seems to love and understand the city as few do, but Goebel’s eye, his sly, meta-fictive wit, and—above all —his language is entirely his own.”
—Matthew Specktor, founding editor of the Los Angles Review of Books and author of the Folio Prize long-listed memoir-in-criticism: Always Crashing in The Same Car, and The Golden Hour
“For lovers of Bret Easton Ellis, Luke Goebel’s Kill Dick renders a pop-infused and murderous portrait of an iconic Los Angeles on fire, complete with pools, pills, ennui, murders, and a cacophony of brands. But this novel has a timely pulse, and Goebel—with his gorgeous sentences and imagistic prowess—pulls off one of the hardest tricks of all: making morality fun.”
—Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley
“One of the last few geniuses we have left in this life. I mean that. Luke has a lot of pain in his heart.”
―Scott McClanahan, author of Crapalachia and Hill William
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781636284651 |
| PRICE | $26.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 280 |
Links
Available on NetGalley
Average rating from 11 members
Featured Reviews
Reviewer 1925711
I’ll admit I wanted to read this book because it is written by Ottessa Moshfegh’s husband, and I believe that Moshfegh would not tolerate being married to a bad writer. I was correct.
This novel portrays the psyche of a woman named Susie who has been chewed up by the events of her life and is in the process of grieving while trying to continue living. I am wary of how male writers portray women’s inner lives, though Goebel did a fantastic job. The portrayal of Southern California made it the perfect setting for this satirical thriller. I couldn’t help but think of Moshfegh’s prose while reading this book. They share a kind of sharpness to the storytelling, like a sort of detachment that is more enticing than it is off-putting.
I think Moshfegh fans will love this book. It has the best of what makes Moshfegh’s writing enjoyable to me, with an experimental spirit and flair. I also think they are different enough as writers and storytellers that readers who perhaps didn’t connect with Moshfegh’s writing should try out this novel.
"Kill Dick" is sharp as a blade. Don’t go into this one expecting a paint-by-the-numbers thriller or mystery. This is a sophisticated literary novel involving a string of grisly murders targeting addicts in LA. Our heroine, Susie, is complicit in her own way. When she meets fraudster Peter, the plot thickens. The levels of corruption here are astonishing—and gripping. A savvy interrogation of wealth and capitalism, fraud and destruction, KILL DICK is not so much a genre thriller as it is a thoroughly modern satire that is not afraid to plunge into the depths of human depravity.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an advance e-galley; all opinions in my review are 100% my own.
Rob A, Reviewer
"These men are nihilists, Donny. There's nothing to be afraid of."
A stream of consciousness rumspringa through the nihilism and opioids of LA circa 2016. I was reminded of the Coen brothers at points, Pynchon at others. The writing dripped with the consumerist nihilism of the era and asked some very heady questions about activist art, class and privilege and of course the experience of addiction. I enjoyed the wordplay and wink-wink-style, dark innuendo of Susie's narration. I've always found the above quote about nihilists from the Big Lebowski hilarious, but while reading this book I noted the irony of that moment from my favorite film considering Donny's imminent death. The nihilists in Kill Dick know better, but they're too rich and too stoned to care, and there's plenty to be afraid of as the world descends into chaos.
A fever dream in the best way.
Kill Dick is one of those books that feels both disorienting and deliberate, pulling you through a hazy, neon-lit version of Los Angeles where excess and decay blur together. The writing is sharp and immersive, with a satirical edge that keeps you slightly off balance—in a good way.
Susie is a fascinating, complicated presence at the center of it all, and the world around her feels uncomfortably real. The story weaves privilege, addiction, and corruption into something tense and atmospheric, without ever losing its dark sense of humor.
It’s gritty, stylish, and undeniably bold. Even when it unsettles you, it’s hard to look away.