Book Synopsis

The breathtaking and consequential first novel in nearly two decades from the award-winning author of the cult sensation, The Orange Eats Creeps, in which two young vagabonds in 19th century California navigate class struggle, fringe societies, American identity, and the threat of a menacing man.

"With lavishly tactile prose, the amazing Krilanovich returns with a sweeping and vibrant novel that is part thriller, part Western, part philosophy, part poem, all of it further showcasing her vast intelligence and capacity to immerse us in a world and time." --Aimee Bender, author of The Butterfly Lampshade

In the late 19th century on the central California coast, two wayward young hoboes -- Paulette and Kenneth -- threaten to kill a menacing man who wronged them: Paulette's father, Rodney Eligon.

A handful of years later, the town of Anzar has become the stomping grounds for all manner of cults, eccentrics, earth religions, and communal living. Presiding over the town from the luxe frivolity of their family manor, the Hasleys have ruled Anzar for generations. Their grip on the town is threatened by the rise of the working class, and their union with the itinerant population. Meanwhile, Paulette has taken up residence in the home of Johnny Hasley, a wealthy faux-socialist poseur, hoping to become his wife. Her plans are complicated by boot-prints in the garden signaling the arrival of Kenneth, who carries with him a dark secret that poses a grave threat to both of them.

In Anzar's cracked mirror, Californian freakiness meets Victorian preoccupations with the domestic, pollution and filth, haunted houses, fringe societies, living death, spiritualism, vampiric women, and class parasites. Acid Green Velvet is a surreal powder keg of nihilism, fathers and their failures, manifest destiny, and American identity, penned in rapturous prose by the fiercest writer of her generation.

About the Author

GRACE KRILANOVICH is the author of The Orange Eats Creeps, a finalist for The Believer Book Award and the Indie Booksellers' Choice Award in 2010, and reissued in 2025 for Two Dollar Radio's New Classics series. Her work has appeared in Black Clock, The Rumpus, The Comics Journal, Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She was a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree in 2010. She lives in Los Angeles.