When I first started writing seriously, about 16 years ago, I wrote down conversations at restaurants, on the bus, anywhere I was just passing time, because I was trying to develop my ear. For a very brief while I also transcribed an hour or two a day of public access television, so it wasn’t just natural conversation I was interested in learning—or maybe ingraining is a better word. There was something strict about it. I would also try to write down conversations I’d had when I got home, and then deviate from what had actually been said, try to add in staircase wit, and then think about if that was actually better, or if it introduced something embarrassing to the interaction, and if it did, could I go from there to develop something new. I think the important thing is to become observant of both the world and of yourself, and see what flows from there. What you want to develop is insight, and (fortunately, I think) that looks different for every author and artist.
― Halle Butler, Interview, Our Culture
What booksellers are saying about Banal Nightmare
- This is Halle Butler at her best. A witty, deadpan, meandering, and relatable story with a cast of characters who you love to loathe. This book felt like watching a reality TV show where you’re witnessing a group of people all seemingly competing among themselves to see whose life is secretly more fucked up, and they’re all winning.
― Maddie Grimes, Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee | BUY
- Mordant, funny, distressingly honest and a bit terrifying, Banal Nightmare crackles with humanity in all it’s complexity. If you don’t recognize yourself in these pages, you may hate these feckless, at times ugly, characters. If you do, you may still hate it, but you’ll hate it like like those who’ve done wrong hate being exposed. But it’ll thrill you in its fearlessness. Either way, Banal Nightmare will leave a mark on you. It blisters.
― Matt Nixon, A Cappella Books in Atlanta, Georgia | BUY
- The title Banal Nightmare perfectly captures the boredom and anguish that permeates this bold novel about an artist/part-time social outcast who’s recently moved back to her hometown after leaving her narcissistic ex. Though the narration focuses on Moddie, an outrageously unlikable (sometimes sympathetic) protagonist, our perspective drifts to the shocking thoughts of the old friends, strangers, and enemies around her–all terrible in different ways. Butler’s writing is harsh, wild, and precise in its mockery. Moddie’s inner monologue as she attempts to fit in oscillates between painfully relatable and completely insane. Sadistic and brilliantly funny!
― Julia Lewis, Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Virginia | BUY
About Halle Butler
Halle Butler’s first novel, Jillian, was called the “feel-bad book of the year” by the Chicago Tribune. Her second novel, The New Me, was named a Best Book of the Decade by Vox and a Best Book of the Year by Vanity Fair, Vulture, Chicago Tribune, Mashable, Bustle, and NPR, and the New Yorker called it a “definitive work of millennial literature.” She was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree.
