Winner of The S. Mariela Gable Award from Graywolf Press (2001)

Loverboy was a Borders Original Voice Selection, 2001 L.A Times Best Book and won the Silver Foreward Fiction Award.

Translated into Italian, Turkish, Portuguese, Dutch

LOVERBOY 
Published by Graywolf in 2001 and by
Harcourt Harvest paperback in 2002 

“A first novel that explores a mother’s obsession; in prose at once lyrical and chillingly realistic, it catches the reader up in a tightening circle of the fleeting delights and accumulating dangers of her misguided intimacy.” 
—ELLE 

“Cryptic… authoritative and vast—full of suspense, emotional urgency,and shimmering imagery…. A nightmare tale of mother-love strong enough to swallow a child whole.” 
—Voice Literary Supplement

“Redel is one of the most talented scary writers to come out of musty old Manhattan in the last few decades.” 
—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Daring.” 
—Vanity Fair

“A spare and stunning debut whose lean, episodic style seems perfectly adapted to its subject matter…. Perfect.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“A controlled and convincing tale of a mother’s obsession for her child…. Painting a convincing portrait of her complex and surprising sympathetic narrator, Redel makes it possible to empathize with the woman’s overwhelming love for her son: the novel succeeds because the reader cannot condemn her.” 
—Publishers Weekly

“Fascinating and disconcerting; you’ll find yourself simultaneously empathizing with this mother’s love for her son and being horrified by her obsession with keeping him all to herself.” 
—Redbook

“Redel writes like an angel about the darkest edge of obsession. This debut is simply excellent. Highly recommended.” 
—Library Journal

“Loverboy is stunningly fine….More Redel, please, and soon.” 
—Minneapolis Star Tribune

 “Redel brings a fresh, new voice to the world of fiction and peoples it with haunting characters.” 
—Times Daily

“This novel dares to look into the darkest corners of a mother’s heart and at the detrimental shadows cast by all-encompassing maternal love.”
—Booklist

“Loverboy is a novel of extremes, and Redel is to be applauded for her relentlessness….This is some very potent stuff.” 
—Review of Contemporary Fiction

LOVERBOY MOVIE
Adapted for a feature film in 2006 directed by Kevin Bacon with Kyra Sedgewick, Marisa Tomei, Matt Dillon, Cambell Scott, Sandra Bullock and Oliver Platt.

From O the OPRAH MAGAZINE, June 2006

Books That Made a Difference to Kyra Sedgwick: 
From Charles Dickens to Rebecca Miller—with stops at Kundera, Salinger, and Irving—the Closer star handpicks her dream library. 

About four years ago, a friend gave me a copy of Victoria Redel's novelLoverboy. I was haunted by this story of a woman who is a wildly exciting mother who creates this magical childhood for her son. She makes a game out of everything and opens up to him a world that is mysterious and wondrous—and exclusively theirs. 

I kept thinking, Oh God, I wish I could have been this kind of mother. I got married and had a child when I was really young. It would have been the most wonderful thing never to have wanted to work again, to be totally satisfied just to be a parent. 

Near the end of the book, the boy turns 6 and he's ready to start school. She can't imagine letting him go into the world to be mediocre, to be normal, to be hatefully middle of the road. Then you realize she's taken her own life and her son's.

I was so stunned. For almost three-quarters of the book, I had envied this character's devotion to her son, and she winds up committing this horrible act. But she believed she was taking care of her child—and that's a universal theme of parenting. It's hard for anyone to see their children get older and become more independent. 

This story was so dark, but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I said to my husband [Kevin Bacon], "You should read this." He saw it in a visual way and said, "Let's see if we can get the film rights." (We did; Kevin directed the movie, and I played the mother.) It's a beautiful book—one you can't put down. I feel the same about the five on my list. 

Kyra Sedgwick stars in Loverboy, and The Closer.