Scrap

A true-crime-obsessed young artist is drawn into the lives of an deliriously wealthy family in this fantastically entertaining thriller from Calla Henkel, author of Other People’s Clothes

Laced with pitch-black humor and conspiratorial unease, Scrap is a razor-sharp examination of wealth and power, art and truth, of the line between justice and revenge—and who gets to cross it.

Recently dumped and stuck with a mortgage, artist Esther Ray wants to burn the world, but instead, she reluctantly accepts a scrapbooking job from the deliriously wealthy Naomi Duncan. The scrapbooks, a secret birthday gift for Naomi’s husband, Bryce, trace the Duncan’s 25-year marriage.

The conditions: Esther must include every piece of paper she’s been sent, must sign an NDA, and must only contact Naomi using the burner phone provided. Otherwise she’ll spoil the surprise.

As Esther binges true-crime podcasts and works through the near-200 boxes of Duncan detritus, she finds herself infatuated with the gilded family—until, mid-project, Naomi dies suspiciously. When Esther becomes convinced the husband killed her, she uses the scrapbooks’ trove of information to insert herself into the Duncans’ lives to prove it.

But the more Esther investigates, the further she is dragged back to the scorched earth of her past and the famous artist who paid her to disappear.

Calla Henkel is an American writer, playwright, director and artist living between Berlin and Los Angeles. Her debut novel, Other People's Clothes, was a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice. She has staged plays at Volksbühne Berlin and the Whitney Museum of Art, and her artistic work with Max Pitegoff has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. She currently operates a theatre in Los Angeles, called New Theater Hollywood. Scrap is her second novel.