Adrift in Toronto's gossipy, grant-driven cultural scene, a coterie of overeducated, underemployed young people stab at vaguely artistic projects and scramble after the opportunities that seem tantalizingly within reach — if you know the right people. Searching for work, sex and big city life is Ted Owen, who quickly finds himself swept into the complicated lives of the young and the jaded, people who thrive in a strange world of hip fashion and surreal nightclubs.

Finalist for the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Prize and the Chapters/Books In Canada First Novel Award.

"Smith has an insider's knowledge of what the targets are and the outsider's sense of where the absurdities lie. How Insensitive is astute and welcome."

— The Globe and Mail

"Russell Smith's How Insensitive attempts what most Canadian writers shy away from — satire. In his dizzying look at Toronto's under-30, avant-garde scene — a scene saturated with drugs, post-punk fashions, ephemeral nightclubs, poststructuralist chatter — Smith displays a satirist's instinct for significant gesture and speech, as well as an impressive knowledge of current cultural minutiae."

— The Toronto Star

"A sharply observed, sour, sweet, and very funny first novel... . Not so many could have matched ... the inventiveness of the dialogue, the grace of the narrative, and the tenderness that Smith shows toward the most vulnerable characters he has created."

--Books in Canada

"Terribly funny and very well written. This is a great first novel. There should be more."

— Quill & Quire

"Margaret Atwood, step aside. There's a new player banging loudly at the austere doors of the fortified Can Lit community."

–- Halifax Daily News