Pool House
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
AN AUDACIOUS BOOK CLUB PICK
"Narrator Joy Osmanski's voice, accents, and characterizations sweep listeners into this realistic and emotional story..." —Kirkus on Yolk
"A sharp, hilarious, unsparing mother-daughter story." —Rachel Khong, New York Times bestselling author of Real Americans
Bestselling young adult author Mary H.K. Choi debuts a brilliantly observed adult novel about mothers, daughters and the complexity of family set against the backdrop of Hollywood
Stevie cannot escape her mother. Abandoning college plans to work a dead-end job, her days are a purgatorial bore. Many dream of moving to L.A. and into the spotlight, but Stevie can’t wait to move away from it, and her mother’s orbit, to start over.
Moon is many things: an out-of-work actress, a recovering addict, whatever a mistress becomes when she’s widowed, and a mother. Reeling in the aftermath of her lover and TV husband’s death, Moon struggles to process her grief. And the last thing she expects is for Stevie to leave her too.
Now, neither Stevie nor Moon can afford to quit each other. And their cost of living forces them into a glass-walled pool house in the backyard, while their home is rented out to pay the bills. But when Adam, Moon’s former TV son and Stevie’s forever crush, arrives for the funeral, the three are pulled into a messy orbit, moving back into the ‘Big House’ and play-acting a picture-perfect family even as tensions rise and relationships unravel.
Pool House is a course charted through the wilderness of motherhood, a story about the challenges of navigating class, fame, burgeoning sexuality, and grief as two women grapple with what it means to grow up and grow older in Hollywood.
"It’s time we recognize Mary H.K. Choi as an auteur." —Michelle Zauner, New York Times bestselling author of Crying in H Mart
A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
An actress hungry for attention and her resentful daughter make a combustible pair in Mary H.K. Choi’s savagely funny, showbiz-set family drama. At 20, Stevie has put college on hold and passes her miserable restaurant shifts dreaming of a future outside LA and beyond the reach of her mother, Moon. After Moon’s longtime lover dies, financial pressure forces mother and daughter to rent out their Hollywood home and reluctantly shack up together in the pool house. With nowhere else to go, Stevie finds herself pulled even tighter into the relationship she most wants to flee. Choi gets tremendous comic mileage from a daughter who yearns for a parent she cannot stand and an actress whose primary talent is making every room revolve around her. Even among the most cutting jokes, the novel finds genuine anguish in their mutual hunger for reassurance. Joy Osmanski’s agile narration is a great match for Stevie and Moon’s blisteringly intimate push and pull. Raw, funny, and deeply absorbing, Pool House makes the longing to be loved feel both ridiculous and devastating.
