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Published May 2018
240 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Miranda July meets Mary Karr in this brilliant debut novel about a cleaning lady on a quest for self-acceptance after her relationship with a loveable junkie goes awry.
Jen Beagin's quirky, moving, "frank and unflinching" (Josh Ferris) debut novel introduces an unforgettable character, Mona - almost twenty-four, emotionally adrift, and cleaning houses to get by. Handing out clean needles to drug addicts, she falls for a recipient she calls Mr. Disgusting, who proceeds to break her heart in unimaginable ways.
In search of healing, Mona decamps to Taos, New Mexico, for a fresh start, where she finds a community of seekers and cast-offs, all of whom have one or two things to teach her - the pajama-wearing, blissed-out New Agers, the slightly creepy client with peculiar tastes in controlled substances, the psychic who might really be psychic. But always lurking just beneath the surface are her memories of growing up in a chaotic, destructive family from which she's trying to disentangle herself, and the larger legacy of the past she left behind.
The story of Mona's journey to find her place in this working-class American world is at once hilarious and wonderfully strange, true to life and boldly human, and introduces a stunningly one-of-a-kind new voice in American fiction.
"Starred Review. This is a terrific debut. Singularly enjoyable." - Kirkus
"[A] funny, touching look at loneliness and the search for belonging." - Publishers Weekly
"How can you resist a love story in which the object of desire is named Mr. Disgusting? Like Denis Johnson, Jen Beagin is able to find humanity and wonder (and yes, love) in some of the most forlorn and hopeless corners of our world." - Tom Perrotta, author of Mrs. Fletcher and The Leftovers
"Rare is the encounter with such a frank and unflinching voice reporting from life on the edge, and rarer still the humor and compassion that Beagin manages to locate in some of the country's, and the psyche's, darkest corners. This book invaded my dreams, took over my conversation, and otherwise seduced me totally." - Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End
"Jen Beagin has one of the freshest voices I've read in years - funny, wise, whip-smart and compassionate. I tore through Pretend I'm Dead with a deep sense of affection for all of its beautifully flawed characters and their bittersweet lives." - Jami Attenberg, author of The Middlesteins and All Grown Up
"Pretend I'm Dead is funny, weird, disturbing, and just a touch magical. Mona, our main character, is such fabulous company, even when she wants everyone in her life to leave her alone. Jen Beagin's novel will stare you down, mesmerize you, and dare you to laugh." - Annie Hartnett, author of Rabbit Cake
"If nuanced, funny, dark, utterly unpretentious literature is your drug of choice, Jen Beagin's Pretend I'm Dead constitutes an epic score. Please enjoy responsibly." - Elisa Albert, author of After Birth
"Funny, supremely candid, this debut hurt me perfectly on every page." - Ron Carlson, author of Return to Oakpine
"Pretend I'm Dead is utterly engaging, laugh-out-loud funny, and always compelling...Each sentence is alive, vibrant and quaking. Beagin's writing is fearless and bold, yet the book is entirely accessible and even relatable." - Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Wonder Bread Summer
This information about Pretend I'm Dead was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jen Beagin holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of California, Irvine, and is a recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award in fiction. Pretend I'm Dead is her first novel. A former cleaning lady, she lives in Hudson, New York.
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