“Kate Scott’s chewable, lickable, gulpable prose transports you to clubs, hotel rooms and pool-side parties throbbing with dark electro, on a restless, reckless quest for rapture.” ROSE MULREADY

Compulsion novel by Kate Scott Penguin Australia

COMPULSION
BY KATE SCOTT

It’s the turn of the new millennium, and the bright young things are partying like it’s the end of the world. Dark glamour and debauched music reign, gigs culminating with everyone on stage – or undressed. 

Lucy, editor of a music magazine, is at the blazing neon centre, ecstatically seeking oblivion. But as her life (featuring a stalker, a not-quite ex-husband, and an affair with a cold, charismatic musician) veers from complicated to chaotic, she burns it all down, decamping to the remote seaside town of her childhood – to start again. 

In Abergele, Lucy recreates her old existence in hothouse miniature. Past friends and compulsions reappear, along with new fascinations. One of them is Robin, photographer and lonely son of a famous producer. Recognising in each other a fellow exile and a rich source of distraction, they fall into step on daily rambles across the cliffs. Their charged conversations about music and philosophy function as both high-stakes flirtation and a stealth mechanism for understanding themselves, resulting in an intense bond that disarms them both.

Compulsion is a razor-sharp debut about the transcendence of new highs, the allure of new lows, and the relentless power of our obsessions. Music, sex, food, drugs, fashion and nature coalesce to overwhelm the senses on every page.

HAMISH HAMILTON, AN IMPRINT OF PENGUIN BOOKS

AVAILABLE IN PRINT, EBOOK AND AUDIOBOOK

ISBN 9781761046551

“IT captures with effortless lyricism the heady sense of decadence and doom suffusing youth culture in the early 2000s.” SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

  • "Languid prose, a richness of writing that paints an evocative picture of almost Romantic-style dreamers and poets whiling away their evenings in a haze of cigarette smoke … The insights into the at-times chaotic music industry of the early noughties that Compulsion explores are as fascinating as the industry can be destructive.”

    Georgia Brough, Books + Publishing

  • “Surrender control and give in to COMPULSION, Kate Scott's stylised, sexy and stiletto-sharp debut. her diamond-cut prose is at once visceral and ephemeral, groaning with decadent feasts, coastal vegetation and teeth-clashing make-outs.”

    Clare Fletcher, author of Five Bush Weddings

  • “This page-turner has already been devoured. highly recommendED for those who love a classic sex, drugs and rock’n’roll story, as well as those seeking a philosophical literary read – yep, it nails both!”

    Collins Bookseller Thirroul

  • “A smart, swaggering love letter to smart, swaggering youth, told in a voice that’s racing hot, icy cool and always on the verge of losing its composure.”

    Ronnie Scott, author of The Adversary

  • "It wasn’t long before I was intoxicated with the poetic, nostalgic, pleasure-seeking world where (metaphoric) pianos are thrown off cliffs, cars gobble up yellow lines as they speed down highways, and there’s a sense of complete freedom and escape from the mundane, hopelessness of ordinary life.”

    Mia Ferreira, ArtsHub

  • “Compulsion takes the feelings you have in your twenties and amplifies them through 60-inch subwoofers so they reverberate back through your bones, your organs, your heart. The pages came at me like waves, hitting with deep oceanic impulses AND crashing into the frothy happiness that comes from being in the hands of a truly gifted writer.”

    Lorelei Vashti, author of Dress, Memory

  • “If you like your books with lashings of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, all wrapped up in quick-witted prose, this is perfect for you… Into this hedonistic world comes Robin, who has more in common with this group than he initially lets on. Classic novels down through the years have used the sidelined observer to provide commentary on the lives of the glamorous young things they’ve somehow become mixed up with – think Nick Carraway narrating The Great Gatsby, and Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited.”

    Gabrielle Williams, Readings

  • “From Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies to Christos Tsiolkas’ Loaded, the nihilistic hedonism of youth has become a literary touchstone for each generation. COMPULSION focuses on the apocalyptic partying that accompanied the turn of the millennium. IT captures with effortless lyricism the heady sense of decadence and doom suffusing youth culture in the early 2000s.”

    Cameron Woodhead, Sydney Morning Herald

  • “A deliciously hedonistic tale sculpted out of words and sentences so good that they, at times, demand to be read twice. An utterly compulsive read!”

    Amber Creswell Bell, author of Still Life and The Painted Landscape

  • “Set in the whirlwind of early 2000s music, art and fashion, Compulsion is a thought-provoking read about obsession, identity, relationships and music.”

    Irene Diakanastasis, 2SER

  • “A brilliant debut from Sydney author Kate Scott. Compulsion’ is quick witted, giving readers a slice of Sydney that feels like New York. It’s so well-written and will appeal to fans of Sally Rooney and Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip.”

    Ariel Books

COMPULSION PLAYLIST

Exit music for the book, featuring early electro, Italo disco, synth pop, torch songs and emotional industrial

Compulsion novel Spotify playlist Italo disco electronic

MEDIA