Lean Cat, Savage Cat

by Lauren John Joseph

A riotous and raunchy novel about a woman whose search for Romy Haag, one of David Bowie's former lovers, is sidelined when she falls into a deep obsession with a musician, who is often compared to Bowie, in pursuit of stardom

“Lean Cat, Savage Cat is the book that’s been missing from my reading habits: classically glamourous, timelessly seductive. Lauren J. Joseph is a wit and an assassin from one sentence to the next” —Torrey Peters, author of Detransition, Baby

Alone at a party, sipping her celery sour, Charli knows she’s in a rut. Kicking around with the rest of London’s bohemian dropouts, she has no idea what to do with her arts degree and her research project on Romy Haag—the transsexual disco singer and long-time lover of David Bowie—has all but stalled out. But her life takes a turn when she bumps into the mysterious Alexander Geist. Androgynously, glamorously handsome, he feels something like a soul mate, another love once lost and now found. Naturally, when he leaves for Berlin, Charli follows.

There, at the center of the city’s febrile party scene, Charli and Alexander embark on their great project: turn Alexander into the greatest pop star since David Bowie. But Alexander is elusive, mercurial; Charli is in over her head before she realizes just how self-destructive her life has become under his spell.

Lean Cat, Savage Cat is Isherwood one-hundred years on, it's Nancy Mitford in the dark room, Bret Easton-Ellis amongst a raft of European low-lives scrabbling for success. It is the story of setting out in search of one thing and finding yourself in possession of something quite different, a book about obsession and excess, doppelgängers and disassociation, fame and fandom, the tyrannical return of unprocessed grief, and the terrible things we do to feel loved.

Genres: Adult, Queer, Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2026

Reviews

[Siobhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lean Cat, Savage Cat is a novel about a woman who moves to Berlin after art school and falls for a musician in a world of parties, drugs, and obsession. Charli meets Alexander Geist, charismatic up-and-coming musician, in London and decides on a whim to move to Berlin with him. There, she falls in with old friends, but becomes increasingly obsessed with Alexander as they move between parties, and as Alexander's success grows, Charli finds herself losing herself to him.

Having read Lauren J. Joseph's previous novel, I would've read this one regardless of what it was about, but in fact, the summary was right up my street: Berlin, rock stars, and a comparison to The Talented Mr Ripley that I should've remembered whilst reading. The novel has a faded glamour updated for the 21st century, with Charli the party girl who, as someone in the novel remarks, talks like a character in The Secret History, and who is fascinated by Berlin of the 1970s, Bowie and Romy Haag. You are immersed in the world as you would be in an Isherwood novel, but at the same time, there's a concurrent narrative that gives hints that things aren't all quite right. It's hard to talk more about the plot without giving anything away, so I won't.

There's so much about queerness, sex, gender, fame, and the self in this book, but the reading experience is a rollercoaster of parties, gossip, and a hint of danger. I love how the real life figures of David Bowie and Romy Haag hang over the novel, all part of the doubling that takes place throughout. By combining contemporary and 20th century Berlin in this doubling, Lauren J. Joseph makes a book that feels timeless and exciting.

[jay ☆౨ৎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was so fun. It follows Charli and Alexander on a hedonistic, debauched spiral in Berlin while Alexander is up and coming as a musician. Both Charli and Alexander were extremely vivid characters, acting on their own self-interests while sharing a pretty tragic codependency. I particularly enjoyed the carnal, queer and sometimes discomforting sex scenes which, of course, complimented the Berlin setting. Lean Cat, Savage Cat is ultimately a story of sex, drugs, fame and corruption, and was wildly unpredictable whilst maintaining an overarching sense of doom throughout. In other words, this book felt like watching a horror movie through the slats of my fingers. I enjoyed and I recommend. Thank you to the publisher for the ARC!

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lauren John Joseph is brilliant and hilarious and I loved this and the way she writes. I have questions though, primarily: tell me more about the cat in the freezer...