Echo is a failing actress who prefers to lose herself in the lives of others rather than examine her own. When her father disappears in a seaside misstep, she and her mother are left grief-stricken, unsure of how to piece back together their family that, it turns out, had never been whole. But then Orly β a dominatrix β moves in across the street. And through her, Echo begins to find the pieces that will allow her to carry on. Set among the bright colours and harshly glittering lights of Los Angeles, this is a love story about people addled with dreams and expectations who turn to the erotic for answers.
**
Review
'Saskia Vogel's provocative debut novel, Permission , is like a trick box full of sliding panels. Her protagonist, jarred loose from her life by the accidental death of her father, finds that the boundaries she's always taken as given begin to slide open, revealing secret zones of power and sexuality within the world and within herself. Beautifully written, mysterious, and compelling.' --Janet Fitch, Author of White Oleander
'Like Didion, Vogel is all about atmosphere and can burnish a sentence down to a Stingrays's taillight's perfection.' -- John Freeman, Lithub
'[A] delicate portrayal of multiple slippery aspects of sexuality' -- Stoya
'This book may be the love child of Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts... and E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Grey.' -- Laura Winnick, Broadly, '9 books that will get your through 2019'
'[A] daring and thoughtful study of love, loss, and pain.' -- Publishers Weekly
From the Author
Saskia Vogel grew up in Los Angeles and currently lives in Berlin, where she works as a writer and Swedish-to-English literary translator. She has written on the themes of gender, power, and sexuality for publications such as Granta, The White Review, The Offing, and The Quietus. Her translations include work by leading female authors, such as Katrine Marcal, Karolina Ramqvist and the modernist eroticist Rut Hillarp. Previously, she worked in London as Granta magazineβs global publicist and in Los Angeles as an editor at the AVN Media Network, where she reported on the business of pornography and adult pleasure products.