Set in a richly rendered Florida and filled with delightfully wry prose and bracing honesty, Arnett’s novel introduces a keenly skillful author with imagination and insight to spare. Jessa also begins a romantic relationship with Lucinda, the director of the gallery and benefactor for Jessa’s mother’s newfound (and, for Jessa, “perverted”) artistry. Mostly Dead Things By Kristen Arnett Tin House, 354 pages, 24.95 Meet the author Kristen Arnett will discuss and sign her novel as part of the University of Tampa Low-Residency MFA. As Jessa grieves over her lost loved ones, she must also deal with her remaining ones: Milo sinks from the world, missing work and barely paying attention to his children, and Jessa’s mother enters a late creative period, using the stuffed and mounted animals from the shop to make elaborate sexual tableaus for a local art gallery. Additionally, Jessa mourns the loss of Brynn, her brother’s (now) ex-wife and Jessa’s longtime lover, who left both her and Milo years before. She also finds a note asking her to take care of the failing business, her mother, and her brother, Milo. Kristen Arnett's debut novel is a darkly funny, heart-wrenching, and eccentric look at loss and love.In Arnett’s dark and original debut, Jessa discovers her father dead of a suicide in the family’s Florida taxidermy shop. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them.

And Brynn, Milo's wife - and the only person Jessa's ever been in love with - walks out without a word.Īs Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother's art escalates - picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose - and the Mortons reach a tipping point. Editions for Mostly Dead Things: 1947793306 (Hardcover published in 2019), (Kindle Edition published in 2019), 1947793837 (Paperback published in 2020). ' Mostly Dead Things is one of the strangest and funniest and most surprising first novels Ive ever read.'- 'Karen Russell, New York Times bestselling author'

'Set in a richly rendered Florida and filled with delightfully wry prose and bracing honesty, Arnetts novel introduces a keenly skillful author with imagination and insight.

Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles.

One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables.

Mostly dead things kristen arnett