Reboot

A raucous and wickedly smart satire of Hollywood, toxic fandom, and our chronically online culture, following a washed-up actor on his quest to revive the cult TV show that catapulted him to teenage fame

David Crader is a has-been. A former child actor from the hit teen drama Rev Beach, he now rotates between his new roles as deadbeat dad, recovering alcoholic, and occasional videogame voice actor. But when David is summoned to Los Angeles by Grace, his ex-wife and former co-star, he suddenly sees an opportunity for a reboot--not just of the show that made him famous, but also of his listless existence.

Hollywood, the Internet, and a fractured nation have other plans, however, and David soon drinks himself to a realization: This seemingly innocuous revival of an old Buffy rip-off could be the spark that sets ablaze a nation gripped by far-right conspiracy, climate catastrophe, and mass violence.

Reboot is a madcap speculative comedy for our era of glass-eyed doom-scrolling and Millennial nostalgia--and yet it’s still full of heart. It’s a tale of former teen heartthrobs, striving parents, internet edgelords, and fish-faced cryptids, for anyone who has looked back on their life and wanted--even if but for a moment--to hit ＂reset.＂

JUSTIN TAYLOR is the author of the novel The Gospel of Anarchy and the story collections Everything Here Is the Best Thing Ever and Flings. His memoir, Riding with the Ghost, was published by Random House in 2020. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Sewanee Review. He has taught writing in the MFA programs at Columbia and Sarah Lawrence, and in the PhD program at the University of Southern Mississippi. He is the fiction and nonfiction editor at The Literary Review and is the director of the Sewanee MFA program. He lives in Portland, Oregon.