Black Bag

by Luke Kennard

An out-of-work actor in his late 30s accepts a bizarre job from a university professor, Dr. Blend, to sit silently inside a large leather bag at the back of a lecture hall for a psychological experiment. As the experiment progresses, the actor's childhood friend attempts to monetize the situation, and a professor of post-humanism becomes intrigued by the 'absent' figure. A warped campus novel and off-kilter love story, the book explores the crisis of masculinity, the modern attention economy, and the quiet desperation of everyday life.