Winner of the 2014 Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction
A New York Magazine Best Book of 2014
A Buzzfeed Most Exciting Literary Debuts of 2014
“A jolting, unforgettable voice. . . . A novel both formally innovative and psychologically unsparing.”
—The New York Times
“It is, in all respects, a heresy—which is to say, Lord above, it’s a Future Classic”
—The New York Times Sunday Book Review
“Blazingly daring.”
—The New Yorker
“Be prepared to be blown away by this raw, visceral, brutally intense neomodernist first novel. . . . Readers can’t help but be pulled into the vortex of this devastating, ferociously original debut.”
—NPR
“A life told from deep down inside, beautiful, harrowing, and ultimately rewarding the way only a brilliant work of literature can be.”
—Michael Chabon
“This is brave, dizzying, risk-taking fiction of the highest order.”
—The Star Tribune
“Simply a brilliant book—entirely emotionally raw and at the same time technically astounding. . . . I can’t recommend it highly enough.”
—Elizabeth McCracken
“A heartbreaking but stunning read, a portrait of suffering barely visible under cloudy water.”
—The Chicago Tribune
“This is exhilarating fiction from a voice to watch.”
—Kirkus, starred review
“A gorgeously odd novel. . . . McBride’s style, which she has called an attempt to capture ‘the moment just before language becomes formatted thought,’ is the most remarkable aspect of the book.”
—NPR
“An unforgettable novel.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A virtuosic debut: subversive, passionate, and darkly alchemical. Read it and be changed.”
—Eleanor Catton
“[An] audacious, brutal, bracingly jagged-edged debut.”
—The Boston Globe
“One of the most extraordinary things I’ve read in the last year.”
—Harper’s Bazaar
“A page-turner and a slow burn at the same time.”
—Vanity Fair
