WINNER OF THE 2019 GOLDSMITHS PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2019 BOOKER PRIZE

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2019

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2019

A TIME MUST-READ BOOK OF 2019

A WASHINGTON POST NOTABLE WORK OF FICTION 2019

A CHICAGO TRIBUNE BEST BOOK OF 2019

A GLOBE & MAIL BOOK THAT SHAPED 2019

A BOOK RIOT BEST BOOK OF 2019

A TIMES CRITICS’ TOP BOOK OF 2019

A TORONTO STAR TOP TEN BOOK OF 2019

 

Baking a multitude of tartes tatins for local restaurants, an Ohio housewife contemplates her four kids, husband, cats and chickens. Also, America’s ignoble past, and her own regrets. She is surrounded by dead lakes, fake facts, Open Carry maniacs, and oodles of online advice about survivalism, veil toss duties, and how to be more like Jane Fonda. But what do you do when you keep stepping on your son’s toy tractors, your life depends on stolen land and broken treaties, and nobody helps you when you get a flat tire on the interstate, not even the Abominable Snowman? When are you allowed to start swearing?

 

With a torrent of consciousness and an intoxicating coziness, Ducks, Newburyport lays out a whole world for you to tramp around in, by turns frightening and funny. A heart-rending indictment of America’s barbarity, and a lament for the way we are blundering into environmental disaster, this book is both heresy—and a revolution in the novel.

 

“Written as a single sentence stretching more than 1,000 pages, this remarkable 2019 novel thrums with life.”—New York Times