Everyone can relate to dysfunctional family tropes. If you say you don’t, you’re lying. It’s why The Osbournes became such a hit as one of the first major reality TV shows, and why the softer moments in Big Brother feel so heartwarming: those flashes of tenderness when a group of oddballs live together in perfect disharmony. Madeline Cash’s debut novel, Lost Lambs, works in much the same way – and yet somehow feels fresh and new.
The story follows the rapid unravelling of the Flynn family, as parents Bud and Catherine decide to open up their marriage. Their daughters – Abigail, Louise, and Harper – find their own ways to rebel as they hurtle towards adulthood. There’s school rivalry, relationship drama, sibling squabbles, online grooming, questions of faith, and the emotional chaos of first love – but ultimately, it’s a town conspiracy involving Bud’s suspicious billionaire employer that brings them all back together.
Following her debut collection of absurdist short stories, Earth Angel, published by CLASH Books in 2023, this new work, published by Penguin, similarly conjures revelatory snapshots of the human experience in Cash’s signature, hilarious, and razor-sharp style. It’s rare for me to laugh out loud while reading, let alone multiple times in a chapter, and here, not a single line drags.
Lena Dunham, creator of Girls and a defining voice of the millennial generation, has praised Cash as “a voice like no other.” Now newly settled in London, Cash hints at a potential future collaboration with Dunham during our warm Zoom conversation on a chilly winter afternoon. She also reflects on writing around her day job, bringing Lost Lambs to life, and navigating the financial realities of running an independent literary magazine.
Hey Madeline, how was your Thanksgiving? How are you finding London?
Madeline Cash: I like it, but it’s been an adjustment. To me, it feels very provincial because the access is different. It’s really big, and everything is really far apart. I’m in a suburb, kind of, but it took us two weeks for the WiFi people to come, and the WiFi makes the heating work, so we didn’t have heat or power for ages. I was like, London is the 1800s. We had to hang the laundry to dry, so everything was mildewed. It’s kind of a disaster.
Everyone on the tube smells like mildew. Which area are you staying in?
Madeline Cash: Hackney, Lower Clapton. I love the people I’ve met; it’s such a cool city. We’re also like a 20-minute walk from any train, which is really crazy. New York is so small… I’m not used to everything being so spread out; it takes an hour to get anywhere. Like, why does it take an hour to get anywhere in London?
Can you tell me about your mindset when you were writing Lost Lambs?
Madeline Cash: I wasn’t totally sure where it was going and then I started mapping it out like a serial killer: from beginning to end, then filled in the pieces. At first, I wanted to write a traditional family saga; The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen was a big inspiration. Then I started reading all these 1950s noir mysteries, hard-boiled detective stories.
Then I was like, maybe it’s all kind of genreless, but we’ll also have this element of mystery involved, which the publicist has said not to call it because then it gets put on a different shelf. But it does have a mysterious aspect to it – there’s something mysterious going on in the town.
What can you tell us about the Flynn family?
Madeline Cash: They’re obviously in disarray. The parents are in an open marriage; it’s going horribly. The three teenage daughters are each rebelling. And I think everyone is searching for something, and then once they find it, they are able to come back together. I need to work on my elevator pitch a little bit, but it has no resemblance to my family. It’s not autobiographical in any way.
“I would like readers to know that there are nuanced alternatives; marriage doesn’t have to look the way you think it will when growing up… There’s no right way to have a family”
Each chapter is from the perspective of a different character, and switches between perspectives. Which was the most fun character to write?
Madeline Cash: I think probably the Harper character. She took a lot more research than any of the other characters. She’s a lot smarter than me, multilingual, and I felt so endeared to her. And then also the Miss Winkle character, who starts off being so unlikable and has to make this full 180, so that was kind of a challenge, but she was fun to write. The ping-ponging narrative did make it exciting to write and hopefully to read, because I got to change perspective and get into each of these characters.
Obviously, your last book was short stories; this one is a lot longer. What was the difference in the process? Was it a big switch? How long did it take you to write?
Madeline Cash: It took me a year, because I was also working as a copywriter at this fast food chain called Jack in the Box, which is a West Coast American restaurant… like, have you heard of it? It’s truly vile. They make burgers and French fries, but they also make egg rolls and tacos. So it’s like global fare, but it’s disgusting. They have a really irreverent, pithy tone, and I would write for the mascot, who’s the Jack in the box, and he’s supposed to be really provocative. So I was working as the copywriter there.
I’d written short stories, but like never anything longer than 10 pages before. So I’d started this book as a short story, and then it kept evolving, and I kept going with it, writing it nights and weekends and whenever I had time. It came together as this narrative and then became a full book. My editors helped a lot, because I’d never written a novel before.
You don’t work for Jack now, right? They might read this!
Madeline Cash: No, I sold the book, and then I quit the day after. I had just got this stupid billboard for their squash-based vegan burger. It was like, ‘squash the beef’. They were all happy with me because of this billboard, and then I was like, ‘I must depart now.’
What is the main thing you want readers to take away from the book, other than entertainment and a nice time?
Madeline Cash: I don’t know. There is a sincerity to it. I would like the readers to evaluate the shitty situations that they’re in and know that there are nuanced alternatives; marriage doesn’t have to look the way you think it will when growing up. There are alternative systems that you can explore. There’s no right way to have a family.
This reminds me: I finished reading Lost Lambs when Lily Allen’s album about her open marriage came out…
Madeline Cash: …About someone called Madeline, too! Well, I’m glad she’s back. She’s killing it.
Do you think open marriages are doomed?
Madeline Cash: I’m personally in a monogamous relationship, and I prefer that, but I like the idea of taking the traditional American dream: the small town, three kids, two parents and then turning it on its head. Life will not end up how you think it’s going to, but sometimes that’s for the better. I don’t think it’s for me, but who knows, I’m young. I’m open – just not literally.
If you were entered into the Lady of Suffering pageant, what would your talent be?
Madeline Cash: I can tie a knot in a cherry stem in my mouth. I didn’t do any talent shows [when I was younger]. I played guitar growing up, and I had a couple of classical guitar solos at Lutheran Elementary School. They’re quite amateur and lame, like I wouldn’t be winning any pageants. I don’t really have any performance skills, quite honestly.
Where are you from originally?
Madeline Cash: New York from LA. My Mom grew up in the Valley, a suburb in LA, and is still there. I’ll go there for a very classic LA, 70-degree Christmas. It’s funny because I want what you guys have, like, warm fire and snow and like that always appealed to me.
“Lost Lambs was optioned for a limited series, so that will be out one day. Who knows? That’ll be really cool. Lena Dunham is attached to it”
Can you tell us a bit about Forever Magazine?
Madeline Cash: It started in 2020 during the pandemic. I was very obsessed with this publisher called Tyrant Books, and when their founder, Giancarlo DiTrapiano, died, they closed up shop. I felt like there was no one carrying the torch of the kind of work that they were putting out, but I was like, I will! I started reaching out to Tyrant writers that they’d put out in their journal, and people that I admired, and kind of cobbled together this zine and reading series. A lot of people took a chance on us.
I would read and find new people I thought were interesting. Actually, Adelaide Faith had reached out to us years ago, and was like, ‘I’m this random British person who lives in Hastings, and I’m trying to write.’ And we were like, yeah, publish her. It was just really cool to see these people appear.
I‘ve stopped doing the magazine now, but my partner Anika [Jade Levy] carries it on. We were friends in high school and reconnected when I moved to New York, when she came aboard, and we started printing them in a glossy magazine form. It was very hard. We didn’t have any money. We went through many different forms of investors. We found a sketchy venture capitalist. Then a random guy who had money, who I started dating – and then we broke up, and then he took all our money. There were so many different iterations of us trying to print this goddamn magazine: we crowdsourced it, we did parties for benefit, literally everything. We did a dunk tank one time, literally, to get money to print the goddamn magazine, which had such thin margins, but it would always work out.
What’s happening next for you, writing-wise?
Madeline Cash: I have a new book that will be revealed, but I don’t think I’m allowed to talk about it. Good things are happening. Lost Lambs was optioned for a limited series, so that will be out one day. Who knows? That’ll be really cool. Lena Dunham is attached to it.
The way I will devour that.
Madeline Cash: I insisted that I be an extra in the Lost Lambs group, or in the background. They were kind of like, ‘do you actually want that in your contract?’ Dead ass, I want to be in it.
I’m in London for the next two years because my boyfriend’s getting his MFA, and then who knows? Maybe I’ll take up a new trade and become a lawyer or something.
Lost Lambs is out now.
