Slut Lullabies
Stories

Gina Frangello (Author), Rebecca Makkai (Foreword by)

9780810149755, Northwestern University Press

Paperback / softback, published 15 January 2026

215 pages
20.3 x 12.7 x 2 cm, 0.286 kg

"Slut Lullabies will seduce you." —Vanity Fair

"Dark, mordantly funny, and affecting. Slut Lullabies showcases a writer able to write about sex with authority, but just as able to write about longing, life changing and dangerous." —Chicago Tribune

The collection that cemented Frangello’s reputation as a writer on the power dynamics of sexuality, gender, and the body

Through beauty, horror, humor, and chaos, Gina Frangello’s electric stories mine the human experience. A gay Latino man whose pious relatives are boycotting his commitment ceremony becomes caught up in hypocrisy and splendor when his lover’s Waspy mother hires a glitzy wedding coordinator. A desperate teen “seduces” her teacher in order to blackmail him into funding her young stepmother’s escape from their violent home. A wife turns to infidelity and drugs to distract her from chronic pain following an accident. A teenage boy attempts atonement in Amsterdam after having exploited and betrayed his naive girlfriend at home. A socialite must confront her dark past as her husband’s deteriorating illness erodes both her bank account and social standing.

Intimate and raw, this new edition of Frangello’s short fiction includes two previously unpublished stories. A foreword by Rebecca Makkai explains how Frangello’s incendiary work has opened the door for writing about deeply flawed and fascinating women.

Foreword by Rebecca Makkai

Slut Lullabies
How to Marry a WASP
What You See
Secret Tomas
My Parasite
Trilby in Brasil
Waves
The Marie Antoinette School of Economics
Attila the There
Saving Crystal
Stalking God

Acknowledgements