This spectacular, sprawling debut novel tells the story of Calliope Bird Morath, daughter of legendary punk-rock star Brandt Morath — whose horrific suicide devastated the world — and his notorious wife, Penelope.

The novel is narrated by both Calliope and her obsessive biographer, who follows her from her silent childhood to her first tortured, manic public statements about her father; from her highly publicized publication of a book of poetry to her mysterious disappearance; from her reappearance as the mute leader of a cult-like brigade known as The Muse to her spectacular showdown with the biographer.

A disturbing and razor-sharp meditation on twenty-first-century celebrity culture, Lady Lazarus is also a funny and moving story about the age-old question of the nature of the self.

"In this gleeful, difficult debut, Altschul lays into an easy target — cynical celebrity culture — and meticulously crafts an over-the-top pop mirror world for his young heroine. Leaning heavily on the star mythology of Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love and their daughter, Frances Bean, Altschul introduces Calliope Bird Morath, the most famous poet in America, 'beloved to deconstructionists and culture theorists and fifteen-year-old girls alike.' Calliope's childhood, revealed in retrospect, is haunted by a public fascination with her parents, mercurial rock 'n' roll heroes Brandt Morath and Penny Power, a fascination continuing long after Brandt's suicide when Calliope is a small child. Pushed by the demanding Penny to claim her father's destiny, Calliope skips college to attend a prestigious M.F.A. program, and soon publishes a collection of poems that centers on Brandt's death and sounds a lot like bad Sylvia Plath. The media swarms, and Calliope scandalizes — and perhaps really does find a path back to her father after all. Over the course of nearly 600 pages, Altschul registers some razor-sharp cultural observations and executes some thrilling high dives (the character named Andrew Altschul's sessions with a Lacanian analyst in particular). But the book's tricky PoMo narrative is bloated with gee-whiz grad-schoolisms, and storytelling takes a backseat to indulgence throughout." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Placing celebrities like Charlie Rose and Ben Affleck in fictional situations and providing false footnotes, Altschul playfully and humorously delivers his novel in a pseudo-documentary style while exploring the serious themes of truth, group hysteria, and the transience of human existence." Library Journal

"Nimble prose and an ironic but not smart-alecky stance keep this story moving along nicely — a promising start." Kirkus Reviews

"[Altschul] display[s] a cutting wit and a real feel for the strange turns of modern celebrity." Booklist

Andrew Foster Altschul is a Jones Lecturer and former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in Fence, Swink, Story Quarterly, One Story and other journals, as well as the anthologies Best New American Voices 2006 and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007. He lives in San Francisco.