List of All Possible Desires: A Novel in Stories

by Dylan Landis

A dazzling novel in stories following Rainey Royal—a young artist coming of age through the tumult of New York City in the ’70s and ’80s—and her family across generations of obsession, betrayal, and reinvention, written with the trademark beauty and precision of Dylan Landis. For fans of Mary Gaitskill and Lauren Groff.

In postwar Paris, over the course of one fateful day, a boy’s crush on his nanny ignites into a destructive passion that burns into his memory and reveals to him the disquieting world of adult secrets. In 1950s New York City, a naïve caretaker struggles to protect her charge, a married woman paralyzed by her recent stroke, as new bruises appear each day on her body. In the 1970s, a fragile cousin wanders into the Royal family’s chaotic jazz-filled townhouse, where music, sex, and ruin intertwine. And at the heart of these stories is Rainey Royal herself, coming of age in Greenwich Village, inventing herself as an artist through the tumult of the ’70s and ’80s.

By turns shocking, erotic, and deeply humane, List of All Possible Desires is a haunting portrait of family and history. It is joined by the expanded re-issues of the novel Rainey Royal and the novel in stories Normal People Don’t Live Like This to create the Rainey Royal Cycle. Each book stands on its own, yet together they echo and amplify each other, creating a world of almost unbearable richness and intensity.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 5, 2026

About the author

Dylan Landis is the author of the novel Rainey Royal, a New York Times Editors' Choice, and the linked story collection Normal People Don't Live Like This. She has won an O. Henry Award and published fiction in Bomb, Tin House and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Annotations&Air · Rating 5 out of 5]

5⭐️

What an absolute gem of a novel! Dylan Landis is my new favorite author and I am on the hunt for the other Rainey Royal book. She is a delicate sledgehammer, an iron fist wrapped in a velvet - and yes I speak of both Rainey and Dylan. The talent in this book is extraordinary. Gorgeous prose in a spiderwebbed plot draping across generations that vibrates throughout the book with all that the family has to share with the reader. Secrets, stories, art, music, family drama, zeitgeist, teen angst all wrapped up in a bow of New York City. I could not love it more. 5 shining gold stars from me.

Thank you!!! to Soho Press and NetGalley for this beautiful book.

[Billy Elias · Rating 4 out of 5]

OKAY! this was lushly written and a beautiful mosaic. i have two complaints:

1. reusing a CLEVER metaphor from the first page of the book more than once; i was delighted the first time she used it, and then disappointed.

2. at times, it felt like the individual stories within were unaware that they were lumped into a book of stories. there was some regurgitated information and anecdotes that lost their charm after being re-explained, which was unnecessary because many of these aspects were told to the reader in clear detail earlier (sometimes, like 5 pages ago in a different story). this wasted what could have been deliciously ambiguous character details and world-building!

that being said, some really gorgeous prose and thoughtful, original language that i often re-read in awe.

[Emi Yoshida · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Royals are a New York artistic family in disrepair, and this is their story in years, through stages and iterations. In the beginning it's 1947 in France. At the center there is a nuclear family made up of Howard Royal the hedonistic musical father, adaptable enterprising wife Linda, and artistic daughter Rainey. Rainey's best friend Tina lives in the attic, and Howard's best friend Gordon lives upstairs from the master bedroom and unfortunately down the hall from little Rainey. There are other relatives in other homes, lots of drugs and ingenues, not so many rules and restrictions. In fact the only rule that is honored seems to be "nothing allowed on the grand piano".

There was a lot that happened that was hard to read or fathom, but that's the Royals. Each story/chapter is brilliant on its own; intriguing, shocking, emotive, nuanced, over-the-top. And the way they come together in the end is masterful - this series of stories, not the individual characters. I love the way such a lack of harmony and peace is portrayed as sustainable. Like experimental jazz, atonality and discord, creativity.

[Calvary · Rating 2 out of 5]

List of All Possible Desires is an intense, uncompromising portrait of obsession and secrets spanning generations. Dylan Landis's writing is visceral and vivid, painting a raw picture of Rainey Royal's coming-of-age in 1970s-80s New York. However, the fragmented, vignette style left me craving more cohesion and emotional resonance.

This unflinching look at the darker sides of human nature is not for the faint of heart. While I appreciated Landis's bold, fearless storytelling, I was left unmoved by Rainey's journey. I can see it working powerfully on screen, where the visual medium could immerse us in the evocative scenes. On the page, it fell a bit flat for me.

If you enjoy audacious, boundary-pushing fiction in the vein of Mary Gaitskill, give it a try. Just proceed with caution if you're sensitive to depictions of trauma and abuse, as this book explores heavy themes that may be triggering for some readers. Steel yourself for a dark, disquieting ride through the human psyche.

Thank you to Soho Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#DarkLiteraryFiction #ComingOfAge #FamilySecrets #NewYorkStories

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dylan Landis is the absolute BARD of the DIY morality of the Seventies, its experiments and failures. These twelve stories achingly demonstrate how wounded children become wounding adults, how they continuously toggle between states of compromised belonging and burn-it-to-the-ground rebellion--occasionally stumbling on a moment of pure grace.

Liked it so much I blurbed it. Do not miss this. What a family. Landis is a master short story writer, and this the third collection around these same people- Rainey Royal, her anti-hero, defiant, challenging, boundary-less, wounded, proud, a locus of outrage, is the center of this world, as is the slowly declining, once-elegant, five-story Greenwich Village townhouse which Rainey will inherit when she is 25, but meanwhile is occupied by her father, Howard, a jazz musician and class A narcissist, his shifting collection of musical "acolytes"--female-- his jazz buddy Gordy, and Linda, Rainey's dreamy free-spirit mother, who is loving but just as unable to parent as Howard.

Arranged chronologically, we see Howard as a child in the first story, through to Rainey in her twenties, an artist, still somewhat criminal, taking the menage through the formative 70s and 80s--the seventies and its morality being the touchstone of the collection. A wow.

[Alisa Saiko · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one just wasn't for me. There is actually a convoluted story behind how I actually ended up reading this book but that is a story for another day. But I thought that I would still give this book a read. Sometimes you are surprised by a book you normally wouldn't read.

The writing itself is perfectly fine. But the story just wasn't for me so I didn't connect with it. I kept waiting for that moment where I'd get pulled in and start caring about what was happening... unfortunately it never arrived.

In the end, I set it aside before reaching the finish line, which is always disappointing. There's definitely an audience for this style of storytelling, but I wasn't it.

Thank you to Netgalley and Soho Press for the ARC in exchange for my review.

[Laura]

I'm not going to lie, the first half of the book was tough. I couldn't figure out what was going on, who was who and how it had anything to do with anything. The second half of the book, I had a hard time putting the book down. I finally figured out the characters and how they all tied together. It finally all fit. Very much enjoyed the second half. My recommendation is, just keep reading. You will eventually figure it out.

[Jennifer S. Brown]

Spanning 1947 to 1987, this novel in stories tells the story of a bohemian family in the West Village in New York City. Lots of themes on free love, parenting, child abandonment, abusive relationships, yet surprisingly, the book was never heavy and the stories sucked me in.

[Elise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried, even got halfway through, but I no longer want to hang out with these narcissistic characters. It’s well written, though.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audio book. Precision writing, horrifying stories.