I Will Kill Your Imaginary Friend for $200

Kay Washington is eight years old, bright and anxious, and she hates being alone with the quiet. Her imaginary friend Eddie Video fills it. He is loud and funny and always around. He is also not real, and that stops being harmless once his pranks begin to hurt people.

Ivan is in his mid-forties and has drifted since he lost his own imaginary friend. In exchange he can see everyone else's. He earns his living by killing them for grown adults who never managed to let go of childhood. The work is unglamorous, and it involves steak knives and a great deal of running.

Kay is the first child Ivan has agreed to help. Eddie Video is not a talking ostrich or a star bear, and he has no wish to be put down. He is also far better at this fight than Ivan is.

The novel alternates between Kay's and Ivan's points of view. It is comic horror, with jokes and violence sitting side by side, and it turns on what a childhood leaves behind and how hard it is to kill a thing that someone invented.