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Mostly Dead Things
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₹5/month for first 3 months
Mostly Dead Things
Buy Now for ₹568.70
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Narrated by:
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Jesse Vilinsky
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Written by:
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Kristen Arnett
One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo’s wife―and the only person Jessa’s ever been in love with―walks out without a word.
As Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother’s art escalates―picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose―and the Mortons reach a tipping point. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them.
Kristen Arnett’s debut novel is a darkly funny, heart-wrenching, and eccentric look at loss and love.
©2019 Kristen Arnett (P)2019 Blackstone PublishingCritic Reviews
“Mostly Dead Things is one of the strangest and funniest and most surprising first novels I’ve ever read.”
(Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author)“It’s funny, dark, complex, and queer.”
(USA Today)“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.”
(New York Times)“[Arnett] gets many things right in this first novel: the feeling of being trapped and vulnerable within one’s own family.”
(Washington Post)“Narrator Jesse Vilinksky gives a wistful performance of Arnett’s debut novel…Vilinsky’s melancholy narration highlights the fact that Jessa is deeply depressed, a reality Jessa herself can’t acknowledge. Other characters, mostly members of the Morton family, are easily distinguishable, thanks to Vilinksy’s fully developed voices…She fully captures the emotional core of this story about family and the strange contours of grief.”
(AudioFile)“Jesse Vilinsky is able to narrate Jessa’s first-person account in a manner that lets readers know that Jessa has spent her life hiding her feelings. She fittingly adds bursts of emotion and a quivering quality to her voice but is able to keep her overall manner reserved. All of the characters have their own distinct voices.”
(Booklist (audio review))“A family drama that’s as weirdly wonderful as it is captivating.”
(Paste)“A strange, loving, and often startlingly funny portrait of loss and the act of piecing together the scraps of what’s left in grief’s wake.”
(BuzzFeed)“A bold, dark and profoundly comic novel about the nature of love, loss, and invention.”
(BookPage)“Arnett writes with keen perception and clarity throughout, not just of grief and old wounds but of the working-class Florida landscape in which the Mortons live. This is an exquisitely painful and tender story, compassionate and understanding of its characters and their myriad flaws.”
(Shelf Awareness)“A celebration of the strangeness of life and love and loss, all of it as murky as a Florida swamp but beautiful in its wildness.”
(Nylon)“Arnett’s vision of Florida as a creative swamp of well-meaning misfits and the sweet hopefulness of finding your way back to yourself through family.”
(Literary Hub)“Arnett brings all of Florida’s strangeness to life through the lens of a family snowed under with grief.”
(Kirkus Reviews)“Set in a richly rendered Florida and filled with delightfully wry prose and bracing honesty, Arnett’s novel introduces a keenly skillful author with imagination and insight to spare.”
(Publishers Weekly)“A clever debut with a Florida setting that brings to mind writers such as Karen Russell and Lauren Groff.”
(Library Journal)