Black Bag, Luke Kennard
Black Bag, Luke Kennard
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Black Bag

Author: Luke Kennard

Narrator: Luke Kennard

Unabridged: 9 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/17/2026


Synopsis

An out-of-work actor accepts the role of a lifetime—sitting soundlessly in a lecture theater, zipped into a large leather bag—to aid a professor’s psychological experiment. What could possibly go wrong?

In Luke Kennard’s audacious new novel, a penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr. Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr. Blend’s students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of Fall lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own—in particular, can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag?—and the actor’s childhood friend forms a vision for monetizing this new situation . . .

A warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity, and an off-kilter love story, Black Bag is a firework of a novel: blazingly funny and profoundly humane.

About The Author

Luke Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist. In 2014 he was named one of the Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society in their once-per-decade list. His collection, Cain, was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and described by Alan Hollinghurst as “the cleverest and funniest thing I’ve read this year,” and Notes on the Sonnets won the Forward prize for Best Poetry Collection in 2021. The Transition, his first novel, was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. The Book of Jonah, his new poetry collection, will be published by Picador in 2025. Luke Kennard lives in Birmingham, UK, where he teaches Creative Writing at Birmingham University.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Kate on February 13, 2026

3.5/4 Black Bag is a bizarre but compelling novel that follows an unnamed out of work actor who gets a job where he is required to sit in lectures from inside a black bag. Dr Blend, who employs the actor, insists he remain silent and not move; he must not speak to the students and preferably arrive a......more

Goodreads review by Hayden on December 26, 2025

oh god, I just adored this. I’d read a thousand more pages about Black Bag, then turn back to the beginning and read them all again.......more

Goodreads review by Dr. Amanda on March 19, 2026

A bizarre experience this was. A struggling actor is hired to sit in a black bag in the back of a college psychology class. And some weird things happen. I actually started to enjoy this more as it slipped into the absurd towards the end. I think I wish it had gone ~full weird~ instead of mostly bei......more

Goodreads review by Megan on March 06, 2026

An out of work actor- a starving artist- strikes out when it comes to jobs and anyone worthy of keeping his steady attention. When a professor hires him to linger inside of a black bag during his lectures, with the explanation of a social experiment as the reasoning, our MC begins a quite intense ex......more

Goodreads review by J. on February 10, 2026

This is a rough one, because it has a message and in summary it sounds weird and right up my alley. However, I unfortunately found it rather dull and too long for what it gives back to the reader. This is based on a real psychology experiment, but it felt like either the idea needed to be a novella......more