{"product_id":"lovers-xxx","title":"Lovers XXX","description":"\n\u003ctable align=\"center\" border=\"0\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" width=\"100%\"\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd class=\"productDetailSmallElements\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eBiographical Note\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAllie Rowbottom\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of the novel \n\u003ci\u003eAesthetica\u003c\/i\u003e and the memoir \n\u003ci\u003eJell-O Girls\u003c\/i\u003e. Her writing can be found in \n\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003eElle\u003c\/i\u003e, \n\u003ci\u003ePlayboy\u003c\/i\u003e, and \n\u003ci\u003eVanity Fair\u003c\/i\u003e. She holds a PhD in literature and creative writing and lives in Los Angeles.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Quotes\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003ePraise for \u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eAn Open Book Club Pick\u003cbr\u003eA\u003ci\u003e PEOPLE\u003c\/i\u003e Best Book of June \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"The definitive literary valley porn novel.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--The Los Angeles Times\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This unctuous tale of liberation, the performance of sex, and friendship told against the neon facade of 1980's Los Angeles has just the right amount of grime and the right amount of heart.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Forbes \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e is a reckless joyride into youthful longing and hedonism, and their bruising flipside. In its humane, heady portrayal of lives on the margins, and its evocative sense of place, it recalls the films of Sean Baker and the novels of Emma Cline - and is presided over by the ghost of Eve Babitz.\" \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--The Guardian \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"In this provocative exploration of the golden age of porn in 1980s L.A., two teenage girls navigate the patriarchy and their own autonomy while forging a deep bond.\" \n\u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--PEOPLE \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eBeaches\u003c\/i\u003e meets \n\u003ci\u003eBoogie Nights \u003c\/i\u003ein Allie Rowbottom's latest novel, \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e, a porno chic romp through 1980s Los Angeles with a turbulent sapphic romance at its core.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Interview Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Pure, coked-up American romance... Similar to the doomed Paris affair of Humphrey Bogart's Rick and Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa, Rowbottom gives her readers the forever off-tempo, neon true love of heroines Winnie and Jude over the span of several decades.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--New City Lit \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"The weight, the desperation, the need to carve out a place apart. It is here that \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e finds its own space, a liminal territory between past and present, between whom the characters wished to be and whom they have had to battle to become.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--David Ulin, \u003ci\u003eAlta \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Like a corset, [ \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e] is laced with cruelty and pleasure, often overlapping, indistinguishable from one another and threateningly so--a meditation on how women navigate these constraints of a hostile world, many of which persist 40 years on.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Emily Leibert, \u003ci\u003eThe Whitney Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Rowbottom's portrayal of the porn demimonde is exciting and gritty without feeling lurid, and the novel doubles as a moving ode to the value of a female friendship. It's a knockout.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, Starred Review\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"A glamorous, sun-drenched Los Angeles epic set in the early '80s, during the so-called Golden Age of pornography . . . Raw and moving, [ \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e] explores the intimate and complex friendship between two adult film starlets as they navigate sex, drugs, and life on the neon-lit margins.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Playboy \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"In Allie Rowbottom's new novel \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e, glitter and grit collide.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--V Magazine\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\"Rowbottom's sophomore outing offers a powerful, vivid, visceral look at the heyday of the adult film industry from the perspectives of the women who populated it.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Booklist \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"If you loved \n\u003ci\u003eBoogie Nights\u003c\/i\u003e, but wish it had way less Marky Mark and way more sapphic romance, then this is the book for you! Allie Rowbottom's saga of the halcyon days of VHS pornography is both a love letter to sexual expression and a cautionary tale of capitalist exploitation, with gorgeously crafted set pieces and an effervescent energy.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e--CrimeReads \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"This book arrives at a moment when women on screen are attempting to wield old structures in ostensibly liberatory ways, too often to tragic effect... Rowbottom's work transforms tools of oppression not into further grist for the misogynistic mill, but modes of inquiry that might throw a wrench into it.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e--Cultured Mag\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\"Allie Rowbottom's \n\u003ci\u003e Lovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e is a confirmed standout of 2026's book releases.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Language Arts\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"The book's strengths - plot, structure, character, sentences - combined with its emotional intensity show Rowbottom's adroitness as a writer. The book is not just a technical success--it has heart.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Zona Motel\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e is \n\u003ci\u003ePersona\u003c\/i\u003e set in the '80s porn world--thrillingly literary; thrillingly sleazy.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Lili Anolik, author of \u003ci\u003eDidion and Babitz\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\" \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX \u003c\/i\u003etackles the sticky subjects of female sexuality, objectification and desire with a smoothness that appears effortless. Allie Rowbottom's writing has a rare combination of deep compassion, prescient insight, and just plain coolness that I'm in awe of.\" \n\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Coco Mellors, author of \u003ci\u003eBlue Sisters\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"You're thrown right into \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e and it doesn't stop. Allie writes about desire, survival, intimacy, and exploitation with a kind of feral tenderness. She turns stick-ups, strip clubs, and motel rooms into a fever dream that makes ruin look romantic. Impossible to put down!\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Madeline Cash, author of \u003ci\u003eLost Lambs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Allie Rowbottom's \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX \u003c\/i\u003eis a fever dream and love song--an ode to the gritty places we find solace and sustenance and glimpses of sublimity. Pulsing and propulsive, it's about the way it feels to wake up in the morning next to your best friend, and the ache of reading her diary and finding a stranger there. It's a ballad in the old sense, with guns and betrayal and wounds carried across decades, but its heart belongs to its women . . . This book is bold and bleeding at once, just like its characters, drawing on old genres--the Western, the ballad, the sleepover secret, the dirty flick, the apology, the torch song--to invent something utterly new and beautifully haunted.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Leslie Jamison, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Gin Closet\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Smart, sad, sexy, and at times surprisingly sweet, Allie Rowbottom's \n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e does for the stars of adult filmmaking what her previous novel \n\u003ci\u003eAesthetica\u003c\/i\u003e did for cosmetically enhanced influencers: It casts a humanising spell, transforming the women at its centre from mere naked flesh into something more like real flesh and blood. Beneath all that silicone and slickness, Rowbottom locates a warm, beating heart.\" \n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003e--Philippa Snow, author of \u003ci\u003eIt's Terrible the Things I Have to Do to Be Me\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublisher Marketing\u003c\/strong\u003e:\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cb\u003eSet against the neon-lit porn world of 1980s Los Angeles, a raw and evocative portrait of sex, friendship, and the perilous edge of liberation for two young women--from the author of \u003ci\u003eAesthetica.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor fans of Mary Gaitskill, Emma Cline, and Rachel Kushner.\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eLos Angeles, 1982. Eighteen-year-old Jude, newly out of reform school, is searching for her best friend, Winnie, when she falls under the spell of an older man with a motorcycle, a needle, and a taste for danger. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat begins as an escape spirals into motel rooms, stickups, and drug binges. Jude eventually finds Winnie, now Velvet, dancing at a Sunset Strip club. Together they imagine a future--bartending, writing, building a life of their own--but the same world that offers glamour and freedom threatens to consume them. Survival means navigating men who promise love, power, and escape--always at a cost. \n\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ci\u003eLovers XXX\u003c\/i\u003e is a cool-eyed re-creation of the world of '80s adult filmmaking, and a hypnotic novel of friendship, self-invention, and sexual identity beyond binaries. Above all, it is a singular love story between two vulnerable, defiant women.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eReview Citations:\u003c\/strong\u003e\n\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/span\u003e 04\/13\/2026 (EAN 9781641297301, Hardcover) - *Starred Review\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cspan class=\"italic\"\u003eBooklist\u003c\/span\u003e 05\/01\/2026 (EAN 9781641297301, Hardcover)\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\n\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n","brand":"Soho Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51496133886230,"sku":"9781641297301","price":36.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0857\/9910\/8886\/files\/9781641297301.jpg?v=1783053725","url":"https:\/\/lusper.myshopify.com\/products\/lovers-xxx","provider":"Lusperbooks","version":"1.0","type":"link"}