Stud

Liam Blackford is a West Australian writer and poet currently based in Perth and previously in Shanghai and Hong Kong. His work has appeared in Overland, Asian Cha, Apocalypse Confidential, No More Poetry, Spectra, and Neo-Passeism.His first poetry collection A Gateway Has Opened was a finalist in the Proverse Prize 2020 and was published in 2021 by Proverse Hong Kong. His subsequent collection No Freedom Too Total was a finalist in the prize in 2023 and was published in 2024 by Private Reality. The Stud is his first novel.

Hilarious, brilliant, and chilling - there's something here to offend everyone.Chris KrausYes, yes, buy this book! If I were not 77 and ill, I would gladly offer myself as a stud - if accepted by the women.Slavoj ZizekThe Stud is a sharp and funny look at the global population crisis. With birth rates plummeting, a government gives women what they want: generous stipends, medical interventions, and men contracted to provide sperm and companionship.In observing girlboss culture and the pressing concerns of affluent women, Blackford balances charm and critique. For a generation of women, the free market is the lover, caretaker, and spouse; The Stud pushes this settlement to an extreme of chaos and frivolity. The novel is also a utopia for men, in which even the most disappointing sons of the patriarchy can find employment and sexual fulfilment by tending to a brood of ambitious spinsters. But the stud's life is thwarted by the mystery of women's desire and the demand for more babies that turns his DNA into a financial asset.Jessa Crispin, author of What is Wrong with MenHilarious and deeply humane, The Stud manages to be audacious and also completely plausible - not least because the perfectly pitched satire comes second to Blackford's psychological accuracy and depth of character.Luke Kennard, author of Black BagFunny, cheerfully trollish, composed in a blunted, deadpan prose that exposes the vacuity of its characters, The Stud explores some crucial questions in a time of birth rate hysteria, technological colonization of our bodies, and exponential concentrations of wealth. Blackford has fashioned a bleak, neo-Houellebecquian comedy of possibly future manners, but with an undercurrent of genuine sadness about the futility of our (forgive me) best-laid plans.Sam Lipsyte, author of The AskA global fertility decline. A mating gap facing educated women. A market in donor eggs and sperm. A commercial surrogacy industry. A growing pro-life movement. Blackford weaves these realities into a cautionary tale about sex and reproduction in a new world order where motherhood has become an obsession. At times suspenseful, often funny, and always thought-provoking, The Stud is a book that is hard to put down.Marcia C. Inhorn, author of Motherhood on IceThe Stud is a vicious masterpiece: an unflinching reckoning with our techno-reproductive future.Thomas Peermohamed Lambert, author of ShibbolethThe Stud is a sly, seductive little book. You ease into the story like a warm bath, drifting away on a plot that feeds its characters satisfaction over and over and over. But actually, it's a gender-swap Handmaid's Tale, withthe subtle reveal of a dystopian gynocracy in which human farms, borderless nations, and endless choices try but fail to improve upon nature's (or God's) original design. Is this what women really want? Blackford sees the girlboss through to her bitter end.Jenny Holland, Saving Culture from ItselfA bold reimagining of sex work, paternity, reproduction, and the body, from a powerful queer voice.Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed MidwifeAcerbic, cutting, and deadpan funny, Blackford's near future Western Australia imaginatively accelerates the derangements of our time with absurd panache. The Stud is a savage satire of the gender wars, corporate striving, and the zero-sum game of modern intimacy. But beneath the dry wit and sharp observation thumps a beating heart.Matthew Sini, writer and host of Getting Lit