Discipline

By Larissa Pham

A taut, electrifying debut about a woman forced to confront unsettling truths about herself, her past, and the life she rebuilt following a ruinous affair with her former mentor, from "a writer to keep a close eye on" (The New York Times Book Review)

"Precise and spellbinding . . . That knotty relationship, as propulsive as it is maddening, forces the reader to wonder: How do you separate your art from the people--and painful experiences--that helped to forge it?"--Vogue

A BEST BOOK OF THE SEASON: Bustle, Debutiful, Harper's Bazaar

I have the sense that something is being drawn between us. Not drawn as in line but as in arrow pulled back. Yet I don't know which of us holds the bow, and which of us faces the arrow.

Christine is on tour for her novel, a revenge fantasy based on a real-life relationship gone bad with an older professor ten years prior. Now on the road, she's seeking answers--about how to live a good life and what it means to make art--through intimate conversations with strangers, past lovers, and friends.

But when the antagonist of her novel--her old painting professor--reaches out in a series of sly communiques after years of silence to tell her that he's read her book, Christine must reckon with what it means to lose the reins of a narrative she wrote precisely to maintain control. When her professor invites her to join him at his house, on a remote island off the coast of Maine, their encounter threatens to change the very foundations of her life as she's imagined it.

A pristine and provocative high-wire act toggling the fictions we construct for ourselves just to survive and the possibilities that lie beyond them, Discipline launches a spellbinding inquiry into the nature of art-making and rigor, intimacy and attention, punishment and release.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0593979648
• ISBN13: 9780593979648
• Release Date: January 2026
• Publisher: Random House
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.5" x 8.4"