February 1, 2024
Following her poetry collection Life of the Party, Gatwood makes her fiction debut with a story that explores women's identities and AI. On the outskirts of Silicon Valley, Mitty occupies a dilapidated bungalow in a town taken over by the tech elite. Her growing friendship with Lena, the new neighbor, will change everything as they confront their pasts. Prepub Alert.
Copyright 2023 Library Journal
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
June 20, 2024
Bethel, a woman in her seventies, and Mitty, in her late twenties, live together in an Arizona bungalow that represents the dying breaths of the time before technology and AI made its way into every aspect of human life. However, Mitty's existence on the outside of the world is changed irrevocably when a young couple, Lena and Sebastian, move in next door. Fascinated by their modernity at first, Mitty begins a friendship with Lena. However, as Lena and Sebastian's relationship sours and Mitty is driven to confront her own chaotic past, the secrets they carry will drive everyone apart from each other until there is nothing human left. Gatwood's debut is harsh in its setting, but heartbreaking in its character development and prose, leaving the reader mesmerized by the reality of how easy it is to get caught up in a way of life that can quickly turn into a dystopia, and the achingly wrenching circumstances of life that drive women's rage to its breaking point.
COPYRIGHT(2024) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Starred review from September 9, 2024
In the stunning debut novel from poet Gatwood (Life of the Party), two young women of disparate means commiserate over their mysterious pasts. Mitty, 28, shares a run-down beach house with her elderly roommate, Bethel, in Santa Cruz, Calif., where she’s lived since running away from home 10 years earlier. The pair are the only permanent residents in their neighborhood, which is teeming with tech engineers and college students. Then a rich and beautiful young woman named Lena moves into the glass “dollhouse” next door, which is owned by her boyfriend, Sebastian. By her own account, Lena feels more doll-like than human, and she has no recollection of her life prior to meeting Sebastian. To prove to herself that she’s alive, she performs outré acts like stabbing herself with tweezers. She’s drawn to Mitty in her quest to feel something, and invites Mitty to ride a roller coaster with her. After Mitty reveals her deepest secret to Lena—it involves the reason she left home—the two go to desperate lengths to come to terms with the past. Gatwood crafts three-dimensional characters and orchestrates the plot to an unpredictable climax that will leave readers questioning everything they’ve learned about Lena. It’s a knockout. (July)Correction: A previous version of this review mistakenly referred to the character Mitty as Milly.