What do you think?
Rate this book
The Stud
Not yet published
Expected 18 Nov 26As the hyperliberal breakaway Republic of Western Australia faces a catastrophic birthrate collapse, the state rewrites the rules of intimacy. Its boldest "mother-leader-father-labourer" households, where multiple women employ a single man to father and raise their children.
Martina, a high-achieving Perth lawyer, has everything except the family she once imagined. Drawn to the promise of motherhood without sacrifice, she joins three other ambitious women - Eloise, Ynes, and Sophia - in a shared home centered around Luke, their designated father-labourer. At first, this works. Then it doesn't.
What begins as a tale of administrative girlboss empowerment slowly becomes a study of desire, power, jealousy, and emotional dependency. The Stud reveals that no political system, however progressive or rational, can eliminate the unpredictability of human relationships.
The Stud is a cool work of post-transgressive fiction that combines the clinical banalities of Bret Easton Ellis with the wry pathos of Michel Houellebecq, probing the societal death throes of our present-future age of anxiety and uncertainty.
Martina, a high-achieving Perth lawyer, has everything except the family she once imagined. Drawn to the promise of motherhood without sacrifice, she joins three other ambitious women - Eloise, Ynes, and Sophia - in a shared home centered around Luke, their designated father-labourer. At first, this works. Then it doesn't.
What begins as a tale of administrative girlboss empowerment slowly becomes a study of desire, power, jealousy, and emotional dependency. The Stud reveals that no political system, however progressive or rational, can eliminate the unpredictability of human relationships.
The Stud is a cool work of post-transgressive fiction that combines the clinical banalities of Bret Easton Ellis with the wry pathos of Michel Houellebecq, probing the societal death throes of our present-future age of anxiety and uncertainty.
392 pages, Paperback
Expected publication November 18, 2026
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Review forthcoming in CHIRB 🖤 Must-Read.
"There truly were no real men, Martina reflected under the hot shower water. There were no men that would not disappoint, that would not ultimately prove themselves to be useless and weak. No matter how promising they were at first, they would always malfunction, they would always shit the bed. They were boys, barely men, barely capable of being fathers. With nothing to offer women, all they had left was to become whores. Everything was the same as it was before, as it had always been."
"There truly were no real men, Martina reflected under the hot shower water. There were no men that would not disappoint, that would not ultimately prove themselves to be useless and weak. No matter how promising they were at first, they would always malfunction, they would always shit the bed. They were boys, barely men, barely capable of being fathers. With nothing to offer women, all they had left was to become whores. Everything was the same as it was before, as it had always been."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review