The Band: A Novel

(Hardback)

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Perfect for fans of Mouth to Mouth and Black Buck, this whip-smart, darkly funny, and biting debut follows a psychologist with a savior complex who offers shelter to a recently cancelled K-pop idol on the run.

Sang Duri is the eldest member and visual of a Korean boy band at the apex of global superstardom. But when his latest solo single accidentally leads to controversy, hes abruptly cancelled.

To spare the band from fallout with obsessive fans and overbearing management, Duri disappears from the public eye by hiding out in the McMansion of a Chinese American woman he meets in a Los Angeles H-Mart. But his rescuer is both unhappily married with children and a psychologist with a savior complex, a combination that makes their potential union both seductive and incredibly problematic.

Meanwhile, Duris cancellation catapults not only a series of repressed memories from his music producers earlier years about the original girl group whose tragic disbanding preceded his current success, but also a spiral of violent interactions that culminates in an award show event with reverberations that forever change the fates of both the band members and the music industry.

In its indicting portrayal of mental health and public obsession, fandom, and cancel culture, The Band considers the many ways in which love and celebrity can devolve into something far more sinister when their demands are unmet.

Reviews

"Equal parts academic and cheeky, ChristineMa-Kellams' debut novel The Bandis the perfect companion for brainy pop culture heads, my people." Anna Dorn, author of Exalted

Author Bio

Christine Ma-Kellams is a Harvard-trained cultural psychologist, Pushcart-nominated fiction writer, and first-generation American. Her work and writing have appeared inHuffPost, Chicago Tribune, Catapult, Salon, The Wall Street Journal, The Rumpus, and much more. The Band is her first novel. You can find her in person at one of Californias coastal cities or online at ChristineMa-Kellams.com.