Glitzy gated communities, drug-induced hazes. National moral collapse and the “beautiful, haunted” allure of Los Angeles.

This is just a tease of the mood board that is Luke Goebel’s “Kill Dick,” an upcoming dark thriller novel about a privileged 19-year-old college dropout at a crossroads. Goebel is best known as the co-screenwriter behind “Eileen” (starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin McKenzie) and “Causeway” (starring Jennifer Lawrence) with his wife, the novelist Ottessa Moshfegh. “Kill Dick” is out April 14, 2026 from Red Hen Press.

USA TODAY is exclusively revealing the cover, designed by multimedia artist Alex Israel.

See the cover of ‘Kill Dick’ by Luke Goebel

This literary thriller is dark and satirical, the story of a “Gen Z it girl” straddling survival and self-destruction. 

Set in 2016, NYU dropout Susie Vogelman is a “potentially talented aspiring artist” who spends her days addicted to opioids at her parents’ gated Brentwood estate. But her ivory tower begins to crumble on the eve of a consequential and “seemingly doomed” presidential election as a string of murders targets addicts around LA. She’s living in a city − and country − about to come undone. Then she collides with Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam, and forms an unlikely alliance with a band of troubled misfits hellbent on making the city a fraction of a better place to live. 

“Beneath the haze and the privilege burns a fearless, too-brilliant-for-her-own-good Gen Z it girl – a kind of modern-day Raskolnikov in lip gloss and vintage Céline – who refuses to stay complicit or silent, even if awakening means breaking the law, the heart, or the world itself,” Goebel says in a statement to USA TODAY. “Because in her heart, Susie knows something is amiss – and that the universe, and the city of Los Angeles in all its decadent, filthy, label-conscious, extremely stratified and ignored homeless-addict-crisis glory, has much, much bigger plans for her. Which she’ll get to … just as soon as she gets her prescription refilled.”

The cover design feels “eternally” Los Angeles, says Goebel. 

“It has that quintessential dreamlike beauty that LA wears so well – the same beauty that hides the rot, the ache, the decay underneath,” Goebel says. “A book’s cover changes as you read it and keep coming back to it; it becomes something new each time – almost like a mirror or a mirage. Alex’s image does that perfectly. It starts as serene and gorgeous, but the longer you stare, the more it starts to hum with the strange tensions inside ‘Kill Dick.’”

The novel has already drummed up praise from big names like “Milk Fed” author Melissa Broder (“A timely pulse” that makes “morality fun”) and “Dancing With the Stars” alum and convicted con artist Anna Delvey: “Honestly, if you’re not reading this book, what are you doing? Probably something dull and unpaid. Consider this your invitation to the party – just don’t expect to leave unscathed.” Moshfegh, in her blurb, says, “If this book were any better, I’d cut my own head off.”

“The novel itself is written as an ode to a kind of classic, high-literary style – think Gide, Eve Babitz, Nathanael West, Bret Easton Ellis – but pulled through the dark mirror of right now,” Goebel says. “It’s about privilege, power, addiction, beauty, and collapse. The cover captures all of that – it’s beautiful, haunted, and unmistakably LA.”

“Kill Dick” is available to preorder now ahead of its spring 2026 release.

Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at cmulroy@usatoday.com.