The Goth House Experiment

An uncanny and electric collection from SJ Sindu, Lambda Literary finalist and winner of the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Debut Fiction Award

In “Dark Academia and the Lesbian Masterdoc,” a millennial English professor facing mounting personal crises puts her energies into TikTok, but her newfound viral fame could wreck her already unstable life. In “Patriot’s Day,” a man trying to leave his marriage for the woman he loves finds himself caught up in larger currents of anti-Asian violence. In other stories, an array of loners and artists—a young poet haunted by the ghost of Oscar Wilde, a queer beer brewer, a boy with wings—struggle for connection and fulfillment in a world battered by the pandemic and reactionary politics. A daring writer with limitless range, Sindu can depict shocking cruelty as readily as small moments of queer joy. The Goth House Experiment is a startling and very funny work by one of America’s most exciting young queer voices.

SJ Sindu is the author of the novel Marriage of a Thousand Lies, which won the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award, and was an ALA Stonewall Honor Book; as well as the hybrid chapbooks I Once Met You But You Were Dead and Dominant Genes. Sindu holds an MA in English from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a PhD in English and Creative Writing from Florida State University. Sindu is an Assistant Professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University.