We Were the Universe
'Full of dark wit and feral delight' Jenny Offill
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3,0 • 1 note
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Description de l’éditeur
'Feral' Jenny Offill, author of Weather
'Horny' Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl
'Hilarious' Chelsea Bieker, author of Mad Woman
The trip was supposed to be fun.
When Kit's best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for a quick, idyllic weekend away. They'll soak in hot springs, then drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she's lost lately: her wildness, her independence and - most heartbreakingly of all - her sister, Julie, who died a few years ago.
When she returns home, Kit tries to settle the routine of caring for her irrepressible young daughter. But in the secret recesses of Kit's mind, she's fantasizing about the hot playground mum and reminiscing about the band she used to be in with her sister - and how they'd go out to the desert after shows and drop acid.
Keyed into everything that might distract her from her surfacing grief, Kit begins to spiral, and as her already thin boundaries between reality and fantasty blur, she starts to wonder: is Julie really gone?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the spunky debut novel from Parsons (following the collection Black Light), a 20-something woman deals with grief and the demands of motherhood by maintaining a prodigious porn habit. Before Kit was married, she coped with depression by using psychedelic drugs and having sex with strangers. Now, three years after her younger sister Julie's death in a car accident and overwhelmed by caring for her three-year-old daughter, Kit seeks an escape in gangbang videos and elaborate masturbation fantasies about the men and women she interacts with over the course of her daily routine in suburban Texas. These fantasy partners include her daughter's gymnastics teacher, a scruffy dad who shops at the same grocery store, and a fellow mom at the playground. Her husband, Jad, and her friend Pete worry she's become too isolated, and Pete takes her along on a trip to Montana. Not a great deal happens—Kit's porn habit continues in the Montana hotel room, Pete struggles to get over his ex-boyfriend, and there are some tense scenes involving Fireball-slugging locals. The narrative's best sections share Kit's insights on her past psychedelic experiences and the complicated valences of love: "Maybe talking about a trip is like telling somebody your dream—they have to love you to care about it." There's a beating heart at the center of this meandering story.
