Wildcat
A Novel
-
- 10,99 €
-
- 10,99 €
Publisher Description
Wildcat is an uproariously funny, surprisingly touching story of one woman’s journey through motherhood and female friendship, in a society that plays fast and loose with information.
New mother, aspiring writer, and former shopgirl Leanne has lost her way. As she struggles with both her grief and the haze of motherhood, it also becomes clear that her best friend, the default queen of East Side Los Angeles, Regina Mark, might not actually be a friend at all.
As Leanne begins to investigate and undermine Regina, she also strikes up an unexpected friendship with the lauded writer Maxine Hunter. Feeling frustrated and invisible next to Regina’s wealth and social standing, Leanne seeks security wherever she can find it, whether that’s by researching whether she should vaccinate her son, in listening to the messages she thinks her father is sending from beyond the grave, or in holding her own against a petulant student in her creative writing class. Most of all, however, she looks for it within Maxine, who offers Leanne something new.
With a keen eye for the trappings of privilege, class, and the performative nature of contemporary domestic life, Amelia Morris’s tender and wicked debut shows us a woman who bucks against the narrative she’s been fed, only to find power in herself and the truth that emerges.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A writer and new mother flails through life in Morris's sparkling debut novel (after the memoir Bon Appetempt). After Leanne Hazelton realizes she detests her best friend, East Los Angeles influencer and anti-vaxxer Regina Mark, Leanne surreptitiously gets Regina's Instagram password and launches a slow campaign to discredit her. While nursing the grudge, Leanne prepares for the launch of her cookbook memoir; grapples with the recent death of her father (she keeps hearing his voice); and struggles to manage a student in the writing class she teaches out of her house, an older man who doesn't recognize page limits or personal boundaries. A local measles outbreak and the potential exposure of it to Leanne's son ramps up Leanne's annoyance at Regina, though her attempts to sabotage Regina's reputation gain little traction until she teams up with new friend and literary phenomenon Maxine Hunter for a large-scale prank. Seeing the feud from only Leanne's side perfectly captures the false intimacy of social media and how confusing its connections can be, an ambience intensified by Morris's arresting, concise observations, such as the description of Leanne communicating with her half-sister "mostly with variations on the heart emoji." These zany episodes yield great drama.
