Lovers XXX

Description

Set against the neon-lit porn world of 1980s Los Angeles, a raw and evocative portrait of sex, friendship, and the perilous edge of liberation for two young women–from the author of Aesthetica.

For fans of Mary Gaitskill, Emma Cline, and Rachel Kushner.

Los Angeles, 1982. Eighteen-year-old Jude, newly out of reform school, is searching for her best friend, Winnie, when she falls under the spell of an older man with a motorcycle, a needle, and a taste for danger.

What begins as an escape spirals into motel rooms, stickups, and drug binges. Jude eventually finds Winnie, now Velvet, dancing at a Sunset Strip club. Together they imagine a future–bartending, writing, building a life of their own–but the same world that offers glamour and freedom threatens to consume them. Survival means navigating men who promise love, power, and escape–always at a cost.

Lovers XXX is a cool-eyed re-creation of the world of ’80s adult filmmaking, and a hypnotic novel of friendship, self-invention, and sexual identity beyond binaries. Above all, it is a singular love story between two vulnerable, defiant women.
Binding Type: Hardcover
Author: Allie Rowbottom
Published: 06/02/2026
Publisher: Soho Press
ISBN: 9781641297301
Pages: 384
Weight: 1.20lbs
Size: 1.20″ H x 8.30″ L x 5.60″ W

About the Author
Allie Rowbottom is the author of the novel Aesthetica and the memoir Jell-O Girls. Her writing can be found in The New York Times, Elle, Playboy, and Vanity Fair. She holds a PhD in literature and creative writing and lives in Los Angeles.