Brutes

The Virgin Suicides meets The Florida Project in this wildly original debut - a coming-of-age story about the crucible of girlhood, from a writer of rare and startling talent.

(Sunday Times)

In Falls Landing, Florida - a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers - something sinister lurks in the deep.

"This season's most-anticipated first outing." (Vogue)

"A Lynchian reinterpretation of The Virgin Suicides." (Observer)

"An astonishing debut that will burrow under your skin." (Sunday Times)

In Falls Landing, Florida - a place built of theme parks, swampy lakes, and scorched bougainvillea flowers - something sinister lurks in the deep. A gang of thirteen-year-old girls obsessively orbit around the local preacher's daughter, Sammy. She is mesmerizing, older, and in love with Eddie. But suddenly, Sammy goes missing. Where is she? Watching from a distance, they edge ever closer to discovering a dark secret about their fame-hungry town and the cruel cost of a ticket out. What they uncover will continue to haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Through a darkly beautiful and brutally compelling lens, Dizz Tate captures the violence, horrors, and manic joys of girlhood. Brutes is a novel about the seemingly unbreakable bonds in the 'we' of young friendship, and the moment it is broken forever.