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Mostly Dead Things
On sale
2nd July 2020
Price: £14.99
Kristen Arnett’s breakout bestseller is a darkly funny, big-hearted American debut about family, love, death and taxidermy!
‘This book is my song of the summer’ Parul Seghal, New York Times
What does it take to come back to life? For Jessa-Lynn Morton, the question is not an abstract one. In the wake of her father’s suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the taxidermy shop to make provocative animal art, while her brother, Milo, withdraws. And Brynn, Milo’s wife?and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with?walks out without a word. It’s not until the Mortons reach a tipping point that a string of unexpected incidents begins to open up surprising possibilities and second chances. But will they be enough to salvage this family, to help them find their way back to one another?
Kristen Arnett’s breakout bestseller is a darkly funny family portrait; a peculiar, bighearted look at love and loss and the ways we live through them together.
‘Messed-up families, scandalous love affairs, art, life, death and the great state of Florida in one delicious, darkly funny package. Kristen Arnett is a wickedly talented and a wholly original voice’ Jami Attenberg
‘There’s a gunslinger cool to every sentence . . . Kristen Arnett is the queen of the Florida no one has ever told you about‘ Alexander Chee
‘The writing is subtle and meditative, with the tactile weight of dense fur’ The New Yorker
‘This book is my song of the summer’ Parul Seghal, New York Times
What does it take to come back to life? For Jessa-Lynn Morton, the question is not an abstract one. In the wake of her father’s suicide, Jessa has stepped up to manage his failing taxidermy business while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the taxidermy shop to make provocative animal art, while her brother, Milo, withdraws. And Brynn, Milo’s wife?and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with?walks out without a word. It’s not until the Mortons reach a tipping point that a string of unexpected incidents begins to open up surprising possibilities and second chances. But will they be enough to salvage this family, to help them find their way back to one another?
Kristen Arnett’s breakout bestseller is a darkly funny family portrait; a peculiar, bighearted look at love and loss and the ways we live through them together.
‘Messed-up families, scandalous love affairs, art, life, death and the great state of Florida in one delicious, darkly funny package. Kristen Arnett is a wickedly talented and a wholly original voice’ Jami Attenberg
‘There’s a gunslinger cool to every sentence . . . Kristen Arnett is the queen of the Florida no one has ever told you about‘ Alexander Chee
‘The writing is subtle and meditative, with the tactile weight of dense fur’ The New Yorker
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Reviews
A gorgeously twisted story
I don't think I've ever read a novel like it . . . Kristen Arnett is the queen of the Florida no one has ever told you about
The writing is subtle and meditative, with the tactile weight of dense fur . . . She takes taxidermy seriously as a craft, not just as a device; she makes it real and intimate . . . it gives readers a fresh way to think about fiction itself, which lives, or half lives, on the rippling cusp of the real
Wonderful
A dark and oftentimes comedic tale of love and loss
Its humor is as dark and glinting as the black plastic eye of a taxidermy ferret
Hilarious, deeply morbid and full of heart
Messed-up families, scandalous love affairs, art, life, death and the great state of Florida in one delicious, darkly funny package. Kristen Arnett is wickedly talented and a wholly original voice
Florida's literary renaissance charges onward with this heartfelt, one-of-a-kind novel
Arnett possesses all the bravery her characters dream of. There's none of the shyness and self-consciousness of so much American fiction that masks itself as austerity. She writes comic set pieces to make you laugh, sex scenes to turn you on. The action flips from the past to the present, swimming through first love and first grief on a slick of red Kool-Aid and vodka, suntan oil and fruity lip gloss, easy and unforced. This book is my song of the summer.
The novel explores love, life and death and is guaranteed to keep you gripped throughout