Try imagining a stoned Nabokov slumming in Arkansas among the outliers and ne’er-do-wells of Breaking Bad — only stranger than that, and funnier.
Couch People
Will Burns
2026
Quality Paper
ISBN 978-1-57366-219-2
EBook
ISBN 978-1-57366-922-1
A darkly comic descent into Arkansas’s surreal criminal underworld through the eyes of a hapless, debt‑ridden hypochondriac.
Couch People is a feverish, darkly comic novel that captures the anxious intensity of a world obsessed with wellness and control even as life keeps spinning into chaos. Prince, a debt-ridden drug dealer on probation, clings to vitamins and homeopathic rituals while stumbling through a surreal Arkansas underworld filled with criminal volatility and sudden violence.
As Prince fights to stay out of prison, recover his stolen money, and hold onto a fragile hope for love, he moves through a landscape populated by unforgettable misfits and bizarre dangers, including a system where snitches are cremated, turned into diamonds, and set into convicts’ teeth. Will Burns blends his satirical bite with unexpected tenderness, creating a narrative that prizes raw interiority and absurd humor over neat redemption. Couch People becomes a propulsive fever dream about love, loss, and the impossible effort to impose order on a world that refuses to make sense, inviting readers to embrace the beautiful mess of being alive without a manual, a map, or mercy.
Strap yourself in — Couch People is part On the Road, part Neuromancer, but utterly original. Over the course of several days, we follow Prince as he navigates several crises, most of his own making. We overhear what is in his mind, and what we hear is both terrifying and wildly funny. If you’ve ever passed someone on the sidewalk who appears lost in this new reality we all find ourselves in, this book could be your instruction manual.
Couch People by Will Burns is a darkly comic novel, written in a high-voltage style. Try imagining a stoned Nabokov slumming in Arkansas among the outliers and ne’er-do-wells of Breaking Bad — only stranger than that, and funnier. Burns is a wickedly beautiful writer.