Luke Goebel's new novel 'Kill Dick' is a satirical, chaotic takedown of the contemporary art world and its entanglement with the Sackler family, fictionalized here as the Sicklers. The book follows protagonist Susie, the daughter of the Sickler family lawyer, as she navigates addiction, familial disgust, and a numbed existence against the backdrop of 2016 America. Its prose is deliberately abrasive and shocking, mirroring the emotional state of its narrator.
The novel matters as a cultural artifact that directly confronts the art world's moral complicity with 'dirty money,' specifically the opioid crisis profiteering of the Sackler dynasty. It uses satire and hyper-stylized prose to critique not just art-world hypocrisy, but also political polarization, climate anxiety, and the numbing effects of late capitalism, positioning itself as a revenge fantasy against powerful, unrepentant figures.