The Vanishing Act
coming February 2027
“It’s as if Martin McDonagh wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” — J.P. Lacrampe, author of Valet
A whimsical, spiraling tragicomedy following a lonely copywriter and his talking cat as he makes the climate anxiety–fueled decision to disappear—first from the Internet and then completely
Colm is socially inept, anxious, and working a dead-end job. He spends his free time scrolling his phone, thinking about climate catastrophe, and sharing decadent takeout meals with his inexplicably verbal cat, Gazdanov. One night, a video appears that disrupts the course of his monotonous life: the foreign minister of Tuvalu is giving a press conference knee-deep in ocean water, explaining that his island nation will be underwater in the next thirty years. Colm is distraught and consumed by guilt. The next day, a mysterious environmental activist appears in his office. Together, they decide that Colm should vanish, in hopes of doing his small part to lessen the burden on our overcrowded planet.
What starts as an intense digital cleanse turns more extreme as Colm gets rid of his possessions, burns his passport, and even begins to starve himself. His increasingly unhinged behavior comes to a head when his beloved cat disappears, and he sets out on a search that ends in a series of devastating revelations.
Part apocalyptic satire, part cri de coeur for our overwhelmed nervous systems, The Vanishing Act is a moving, resonant, and ultimately uplifting chronicle of the modern human condition.
Feb. 23rd, 2027. Preorder: Catapult | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop
Praise for The Vanishing Act
“Hilarious, strange, and profoundly human. An absurdist delight about how connection and love will triumph even when we think it impossible.”
— Jade Song, author of Chlorine
“Obsessive, darkly funny, and painfully relatable. Colm’s vanishing act made me laugh, cry, and pray it wouldn’t work.”
— Nazli Koca, author of The Applicant
“The Vanishing Act is a darkly funny and deceptively tender chronicle of one man’s drastic efforts to decrease his environmental footprint. Colm is the most beguiling and indelible narrator I’ve encountered in some time. I devoured this novel in a day and have been thinking about it ever since.”
— Isabel Kaplan, national bestselling author of NSFW
“This novel is a romp through our present dystopia. Like all good satire, it places a firm and loving hand on our shoulder and whirls us around to face ourselves in the warped mirror of our reality. Connolly's writing does this with depth, hilarity, and plenty of anxiety, all while questioning what ‘our reality’ even means.”
— Sarah Gerard, author of True Love
“A striking, elegant, and witty novel, The Vanishing Act dissects our fumbling quest for purpose — and the ethics we haphazardly scaffold around it. It's as if Martin McDonagh wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. An assured and poignant debut.”
— J.P. Lacrampe, author of VALET
“An off-beat Requiem for a Dream for an anxious era, Connolly’s The Vanishing Act is a finely wrought, tense, and tender exploration of disappearance as a solution to existence.”
— Lior Torenberg, author of Just Watch Me
“A wickedly funny debut, The Vanishing Act is a smart and surprisingly poignant reminder that connection and possibility endure even in the darkest of times.”
— Michael Donkor, author of Housegirl
“A thought-provoking and timely debut on who we present as and what we owe each other in the era of modern technology. Through the witty and unpredictable Colm, Connolly presents a compelling outlook on what it means to be a citizen of the world right now.”
— P. Paramita, Author of Appetite