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An eerie, watery reimagining of the Oedipus myth set on the canals of Oxford, from the author of Fen.
The dictionary doesn't contain every word. Gretel, a lexicographer by trade, knows this better than most. She grew up on a houseboat with her mother, wandering the canals of Oxford and speaking a private language of their own invention. Her mother disappeared when Gretel was a teen, abandoning her to foster care, and Gretel has tried to move on, spending her days updating dictionary entries.
One phone call from her mother is all it takes for the past to come rushing back. To find her, Gretel will have to recover buried memories of her final, fateful winter on the canals. A runaway boy had found community and shelter with them, and all three were haunted by their past and stalked by an ominous creature lurking in the canal: the bonak. Everything and nothing at once, the bonak was Gretel's name for the thing she feared most. And now that she's searching for her mother, she'll have to face it.
In this electrifying reinterpretation of a classical myth, Daisy Johnson explores questions of fate and free will, gender fluidity, and fractured family relationships. Everything Under―a debut novel whose surreal, watery landscape will resonate with fans of Fen―is a daring, moving story that will leave you unsettled and unstrung.
"A tense, startling book of true beauty and insight. Proof that the oldest of stories contain within them the seeds of our future selves." ―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Harrowing, singular... . A stunning fever dream of a novel." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Dreamy, unsettling, and vividly poetic... . With its lyrical descriptions of a frightening landscape as well as the inner worlds of its confused characters, Everything Under demands―and rewards―close reading and rereading." ―Booklist (starred review)
"A haunting tale of children lost and parents found, this debut novel is a special treat for word lovers." ―Library Journal (starred review)
This information about Everything Under 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.
Daisy Johnson is the author of the short-story collection Fen. She is the winner of the Harper's Bazaar Short Story Prize, the A. M. Heath Prize, and the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She lives in Oxford, England, by the river.
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