Generation Loss

Believer Book Award finalist

Cass Neary made her name in the 1970s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures of the musicians and hangers on, the infamous, the damned, and the dead, got her into art galleries and a book deal. But thirty years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out. Then an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Downeast, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and into one final shot at redemption. Generation Loss is the Shirley Jackson Award winning novel that launched Elizabeth Hand’s ex-punk photographer Cass Neary into the world.

“Elizabeth Hand’s Cass Neary series began in 2008 with Generation Loss, a startling and addictive novel that introduced a protagonist fueled by drugs and post-punk irreverence.”
— Danielle Trussoni, New York Times Book Review

“Sharp, clear, and mercilessly lean. Not only did that style fit Cass, it fit Hand: The author, roughly the same age as her character, was also a part of the punk scene in her youth. Generation Loss rasps with gritty authenticity, from the copious references to artists like Iggy Pop and the Ramones to the way Cass’ hardcore attraction to damage and destruction propels her deep into the book’s maze of murder and secrets.”
— Jason Heller, NPR

“Although it moves like a thriller, it detonates with greater resound. A dark and beautiful novel.”
—Washington Post Book World

“Cass is a marvel, someone with whom we take the difficult journey toward delayed adulthood, wishing her encouragement despite grave odds.” —Los Angeles Times