CONSUMED

Stylish and tech-obsessed, Naomi and Nathan are lovers and competitors. Nomadic freelancers in pursuit of sensation and depravity in the social media age, they encounter each other only in airport hotels and browser windows. Naomi is drawn to the headlines surrounding Celestine and Aristide Arosteguy, Marxist philosophers and sexual libertines. Celestine has been found dead and mutilated in her Paris apartment. Aristide, suspected of the killing, has disappeared. Her interest aroused, Naomi sets off in search of the truth about the disturbing mystery. Nathan, meanwhile, is in Budapest photographing the work of a controversial surgeon. But after sleeping with one of his subjects, Nathan contracts a rare STD called Roiphe''s. Determined to meet the doctor who identified the disease, Nathan comes across Roiphe''s daughter, a young woman whose bizarre behaviour masks a devastating secret. These parallel narratives become entwined in a gripping, dreamlike plot that involves 3-D printing, North Korea, the Cannes Film Festival, cancer, and, in an incredible number of varieties, sex. ''Consumed'' is an exuberant, provocative debut novel from one of the world''s leading film directors.