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One of the premier French cult novels of the last thirty years, a tender and combative portrait of Paris’s queer rave scene in the 90s — for fans of Virginie Despentes and Gary Indiana.
Louise is a woman in her early thirties with a record contract, colorful roommates, and a passionate, volatile relationship with the lesbian community around her. She used to be part of the French rock scene, having dated and collaborated with a man named Nikki who was a crucial figure in that milieu. But she has been out of that world for years, having switched from rock to rave culture and, concurrently, having started to date chiefly women. Her longest and most combative relationship in this scene has been with Alex, another woman who has established herself as a DJ and has recently started seeing a much younger woman named Inès.
One day, Louise receives a life-changing advance from a record label to produce her own electronic music. She struggles to handle the responsibility of professionalizing her lifestyle, one suffused with the omnidirectional drama of the women in her circle, and with her own equivocations about her role in it. They bar-crawl, watch MTV, go to each other’s sets, hook up, and do copious drugs.
Tension builds as Louise finds herself pulled toward multiple possible paths: forward in her career in the techno world; backward toward rock’n’roll, Nikki, and the life he represents; toward Alex again; and toward Inès, leading to a dangerous and ultimately devastating affair. Ann Scott portrays the Paris underground in all its beauty, ugliness, and pulpy grandeur, with the caustic voice of a born punk struggling to conform to the standards of a new, hungry world of anticonformists.
Book Details
Format:
Trade Paperback Original
Price:
22 USD / 29.99 CAD
Published: 04/07/2026
ISBN: 9781662603471
Imprint:
Astra House
Page Count: 320
Trim Size: 5-1/2 x 8-1/4
“Originally published in 2000, this French cult classic novel chronicles Paris’ queer rave scene in the ‘90s. Think: lesbian DJ love triangles, anticonformists, grainy MTV, and designer drugs. The long-awaited English translation of this pop novel is sure to be spotted on the L train this spring.”
—Sophia June, Playboy "Most Anticipated Books of 2026"
“The literary queen of the Paris techno scene, whose cult novel Superstars immortalized the hedonism and rivalry of the sweat-drenched dancefloors and rave parties of 1990s France . . . Scott’s writing contrasts beautiful party people with the fragility of life, the difficulty of being part of a crowd.”
—Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian
“The iconic Ann Scott chronicles the Paris lesbian techno scene of the '90s with language as rhythmic and hypnotic as trance music itself, reveling in the debauchery and beauty, the hard drugs and rough sex. This is a wildly ecstatic novel, as the heavens open up for our heroine Louise, but only because she dances with the devils. Brilliant, relentless, and wild as fuck.”
—Paula Bomer, author of The Stalker
“[Superstars] propelled [Ann Scott] into the ranks of Generation X literary personalities . . . alongside Virginie Despentes . . . and Guillaume Dustan.”
—Le Monde
“A raw story, as direct as a slap or a first kiss, Superstars is a hymn to suffering, to furtive delights, to undying love. Scott writes like someone plunging a sword into her reader to disseminate the naughtiest of pleasures. Her book is pain and joy, enough to make you wince.”
—Nicolas Rey, Le Figaro
“We remember Ann Scott as the figurehead of Parisian underground nightlife in the 1990s, a close friend of Virginie Despentes, and the bestselling author of Superstars, the pulpy account of a thirty-year-old heroine being tugged in all directions by lesbian subculture, the techno of her professional life, her love for rock music, and nostalgia for a past lover. It was a portrait so true to life that it became a cult item, to the point of being cited as ‘the novel of Generation X’.”
—Isabelle Lesniak, Les Echos