The Hitch
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Pick
“Winningly zany . . . [Levine’s] commitment to boinging around the loopy little world she’s built is total. Only a killjoy would refuse to join her."—New York Times Book Review
From the author of the cult classic Treasure Island!!!, a delightfully unhinged comedy following a woman as she attempts to exorcise the spirit of a dead corgi from her nephew and renegotiate the borders of her previously rational world
Sara Levine debuted with her outrageously original and unforgettable novel Treasure Island!!!, which became a cult classic and bookseller favorite. With the ferocious absurdity of Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch and the inventive comedy of Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here, Levine’s highly anticipated second novel, The Hitch, follows a woman as she attempts to exorcise the spirit of a dead corgi from her nephew and renegotiate the borders of her previously rational world.
As an antiracist, secular Jewish feminist eco-warrior, Rose Cutler is convinced she knows the right way to do everything, including parent her six-year-old nephew Nathan. When his parents reluctantly agree to let Rose babysit him while they go on a vacation designed to save their marriage, she is determined to follow their rules and not overstep. But on her first day with Nathan, Rose’s beloved Newfoundland attacks and kills a corgi at the park and Nathan starts acting strangely: barking, overeating, talking to himself. Rose believes this is how Nathan’s child imagination is coping with the dog’s death, but Nathan insists the dog isn’t dead; her soul leaped into his body, and now she’s living inside him. With only a week left before his parents return, Rose races to banish the corgi from her nephew.
An off-kilter comedy about loneliness, bad boundaries, and the exacting nature of unconditional love, The Hitch is a big-hearted novel that exposes the fault lines of our pieties and asks how far a person should stretch to fit into their own family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Levine (Treasure Island!!!) serves up a bizarre and mordantly funny tale of a six-year-old who might be possessed by a dead corgi. It's narrated by Rose Cutler, a progressive who frequently clashes with her uptight sister-in-law, Astrid, the mother of her nephew, Nathan. Rose is delighted when she's allowed to babysit Nathan for a week while his parents vacation in Mexico. She feeds him vegan lentil loaf, explains the environmental devastation caused by the fast-food industry, and takes him to the dog park with her Newfoundland, Walter. Disaster ensues when a corgi named Hazel nips at Nathan and Walter moves in to protect him, snapping Hazel's neck. Soon after, Nathan starts acting like a dog (he barks, sticks his head out the car window, and laps at his dinner plate). Nathan claims Hazel "jump into me," and attributes her spirit to his newfound ability to recite Shakespeare. It's all fun and games until Rose decides Hazel must be exorcised before Nathan's parents come home. Levine balances her tender depiction of the aunt and nephew's bond with Rose's excoriating rants, as in her monologue on corgis ("laughable cuddle toys with stubby legs and dopey eyes bred to entertain the bourgeois dregs of humanity"). It's a vibrant portrait of childhood wonder and adult anxiety.
