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Acid Green Velvet
The breathtaking and consequential first novel in nearly two decades from the award-winning author of the cult sensation, The Orange Eats Creeps.
In the late 19th century on the central California coast, two wayward young hoboes — Paulette and Kenneth — threaten to kill a menacing man who wronged them: Paulette’s father, Rodney Eligon.
A handful of years later, the town of Anzar has become the stomping grounds for all manner of cults, eccentrics, earth religions, and communal living. Presiding over the town from the luxe frivolity of their family manor, the Hasleys have ruled Anzar for generations. Their grip on the town is threatened by the rise of the working class, and their union with the itinerant population. Meanwhile, Paulette has taken up residence in the home of Johnny Hasley, a wealthy faux-socialist poseur, hoping to become his wife. Her plans are complicated by boot-prints in the garden signaling the arrival of Kenneth, who carries with him a dark secret that poses a grave threat to both of them.
In Anzar’s cracked mirror, Californian freakiness meets Victorian preoccupations with the domestic, pollution and filth, haunted houses, fringe societies, living death, spiritualism, vampiric women, and class parasites. Acid Green Velvet is a surreal powder keg of nihilism, fathers and their failures, manifest destiny, and American identity, penned in rapturous prose by the fiercest writer of her generation.
In the late 19th century on the central California coast, two wayward young hoboes — Paulette and Kenneth — threaten to kill a menacing man who wronged them: Paulette’s father, Rodney Eligon.
A handful of years later, the town of Anzar has become the stomping grounds for all manner of cults, eccentrics, earth religions, and communal living. Presiding over the town from the luxe frivolity of their family manor, the Hasleys have ruled Anzar for generations. Their grip on the town is threatened by the rise of the working class, and their union with the itinerant population. Meanwhile, Paulette has taken up residence in the home of Johnny Hasley, a wealthy faux-socialist poseur, hoping to become his wife. Her plans are complicated by boot-prints in the garden signaling the arrival of Kenneth, who carries with him a dark secret that poses a grave threat to both of them.
In Anzar’s cracked mirror, Californian freakiness meets Victorian preoccupations with the domestic, pollution and filth, haunted houses, fringe societies, living death, spiritualism, vampiric women, and class parasites. Acid Green Velvet is a surreal powder keg of nihilism, fathers and their failures, manifest destiny, and American identity, penned in rapturous prose by the fiercest writer of her generation.
336 pages, Paperback
First published September 8, 2026
About the author
Grace Krilanovich
2 books149 followersGrace Krilanovich has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow, and a finalist for the Starcherone Prize. Her first book, The Orange Eats Creeps, is the only novel to be excerpted twice in Black Clock.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Thanks to Two Dollar Radio, Recorded Books Inc, Grace Krilanovich (author), Edelweiss, and Libro.fm for the digital review copy and advance listening copy of Acid Green Velvet (audiobook narrated by Morgan Hallett.) Their generosity did not influence my review.
Hey weirdos! Do I have a book rec for you. All the cool people will be reading Acid Green Velvet this fall, calling it things like "transcendent" and "immersive"—you know, those overused, meaningless words people throw around when literary fiction gets bizarre. It’s a shame, because underneath the hype, it really is a great yet deeply weird book.
The author drops us into a late-1800s California where the American Dream is already dead. The class disparity is so wide that the elites are eating crustless cucumber sandwiches while raccoons are literally stealing food from children outside the estate gates. It feels like a fever-dream mashup of A Clockwork Orange, Lorde’s Royals, and The Lost Boys. Imagine a bunch of grifters with thoughts of anarchy enjoying cool drugs, weird music, and sweaty sex right in the middle of a Gilded Age Wild West. The story follows these scrappy wannabes as they try to scheme their way into wealthy poseur territory—proving that at the end of the day, the grifters and the elites are exactly the same brand of parasite.
Someone else described the vibe perfectly: it’s as if the kids at Burning Man suddenly showed up in the VIP section at Coachella. If you want a historical Western counterculture trip that is dark, cynical, and unhinged in a very cool way, grab a copy. 4 stars
Hey weirdos! Do I have a book rec for you. All the cool people will be reading Acid Green Velvet this fall, calling it things like "transcendent" and "immersive"—you know, those overused, meaningless words people throw around when literary fiction gets bizarre. It’s a shame, because underneath the hype, it really is a great yet deeply weird book.
The author drops us into a late-1800s California where the American Dream is already dead. The class disparity is so wide that the elites are eating crustless cucumber sandwiches while raccoons are literally stealing food from children outside the estate gates. It feels like a fever-dream mashup of A Clockwork Orange, Lorde’s Royals, and The Lost Boys. Imagine a bunch of grifters with thoughts of anarchy enjoying cool drugs, weird music, and sweaty sex right in the middle of a Gilded Age Wild West. The story follows these scrappy wannabes as they try to scheme their way into wealthy poseur territory—proving that at the end of the day, the grifters and the elites are exactly the same brand of parasite.
Someone else described the vibe perfectly: it’s as if the kids at Burning Man suddenly showed up in the VIP section at Coachella. If you want a historical Western counterculture trip that is dark, cynical, and unhinged in a very cool way, grab a copy. 4 stars
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
This 19th century California town is like a hymn of misanthropy luring and ensnaring all its scorned characters. Krilanovich perceives how dehumanization psychologically, animalistically, and metaphysically transforms a person, balancing the soapbox with the ideal amount of schadenfreude. While things aren't always as they seem, this phantasmagoric folkish thriller couldn't be more lucid. Anarcho-vampire women's collectives hold dominion, fringe outcasts actually punch up, and the predaceous nature of religion is a looming entity as substantial as the werewolf cameos. It's got this historical western counterculture core ethos worthy of an underground cult classic.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
What a knockout. A weird and wicked book. Technically, it's historical fiction but in Krilanovich’s hands the novel is transmuted into a whole new category: history as a haunted house. Reminded me of Kevin Barry’s City of Bohane with a dash of Faulkner, but really Krilanovich is in a class by herself. Something to underline on every page.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
3.5 ⭐️ rounded up
My experience reading a Two Dollar Radio book tends to go something like this: This sounds interesting. And weird. Oh yes, it’s wonderfully weird. Am I smart enough to read this? Nope. Definitely not. But I can’t put it down.
My brain needs this kind of electric shock to keep it alert, on its toes, aware of the vastness that can exist in the world of literature.
ACID GREEN VELVET reads like a trippy kind of fever dream. Set in the late 1800s, the time and place make this one, but there’s also an odd sort of modernity to the story and language. It juxtaposes the devolution of an idyllic city with uprising of a new counterculture, making for interesting commentary on social classes and so much more.
I need a second read to absorb all Krilanovich is doing here and I definitely want to go back and pick up THE ORANGE EATS CREEPS now.
Thanks to Two Dollar Radio for the advance copy.
My experience reading a Two Dollar Radio book tends to go something like this: This sounds interesting. And weird. Oh yes, it’s wonderfully weird. Am I smart enough to read this? Nope. Definitely not. But I can’t put it down.
My brain needs this kind of electric shock to keep it alert, on its toes, aware of the vastness that can exist in the world of literature.
ACID GREEN VELVET reads like a trippy kind of fever dream. Set in the late 1800s, the time and place make this one, but there’s also an odd sort of modernity to the story and language. It juxtaposes the devolution of an idyllic city with uprising of a new counterculture, making for interesting commentary on social classes and so much more.
I need a second read to absorb all Krilanovich is doing here and I definitely want to go back and pick up THE ORANGE EATS CREEPS now.
Thanks to Two Dollar Radio for the advance copy.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews