Black Bag by Luke Kennard- Booker Prize Finalist 2026

“The funniest and smartest novel I’ve read in a while.” —Zadie Smith

Every so often, a book comes along that makes you laugh out loud on page one and then quietly break your heart by the end. This is one of them.

Here’s the setup: an out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime. His task? To sit soundlessly at the back of a university lecture hall, zipped inside a large leather bag, all in the name of a professor’s psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. As Dr. Blend’s students react to the mysterious figure in the bag, the whole situation begins to spiral in wonderfully unexpected directions. A professor of post-humanism develops a research question all her own—can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag?—while the actor’s childhood friend spots a chance to turn the whole strange affair into a payday.

Part warped campus novel, part off-kilter love story, part sharp-eyed look at the modern crisis of masculinity, Black Bag is a firework of a book. Blazingly funny. Deeply humane. The kind of read that rewards lingering.

“A genre-defying, big-swing of a novel . . . a sharply funny meditation on masculinity, academia, the modern attention economy, and the quiet desperation of everyday life.” —Andrew Boryga, author of Victim

This one’s a real discovery—a hardcover new release we’ve been eager to press into readers’ hands. Pull up a chair, listen to the sea just beyond the footbridge, and settle in. You’ll be glad you did.

Additional information