“Molly is one of the greatest young female characters I’ve had the luck of reading since I picked up Joy Williams’s The Quick and the Dead back in 2000 . . . I TRULY LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!!”
- Gillian Flynn, Gillian Flynn Books
A feral, heart-busting, absurdist debut about Molly, a rambunctious and bawdy ten-year-old searching for friendship and ghosts.
ISBN
9781638931089
Language
English
Page count
336
Edition
Hardcover
Sale date
May 21, 2024
Dimensions
5.5 x 8.25
About the Book
It’s 1992, and ten-year-old Molly is tired of living in the fire-rotted, nun-haunted House of Friends: a Semi-Cooperative Living Community of Peace Faith(s) in Action with her formerly blind dad and their grieving housemate Evelyn. But when twenty-three-year-old Jeanie, a dirt bike–riding ex-con with a questionable past, moves in, she quickly becomes the object of Molly’s adoration. She might treat Molly terribly, but they both have dead moms and potty mouths, so naturally Molly can’t seem to leave Jeanie alone.
When Jeanie fakes her own death in a hot-air balloon accident, Molly runs away to Chicago with just a stolen credit card and a sweet pair of LA Gear Heatwaves to meet her pen pal Demarcus and hunt down Jeanie. What follows is a race to New Year’s Eve, as Molly and Demarcus plan a séance to reunite with their lost moms in front of a live audience at the World’s Fair.
A surrealist and bold take on the American coming-of-age novel, Holly Wilson’s debut is about the interstices of loss, grief, and friendship.
Reviews
“Readers won’t want to finish Wilson’s debut—or leave Molly’s world. Molly has one of the funniest internal monologues in literary fiction, with Wilson’s genius dialogue to match. The invented World’s Fair is a feat of massive imagination and a celebration of past fairs, Chicago lore, and 1990s culture. Cut the tethers of a hot-air balloon, visit a psychic in an iron lung, take a glass elevator to an underwater food court; laugh, cry, and be moved by this novel of great art.”
“An invigorating read! A scorched-earth ghost story with a hell of a voice at its heart. Fans of Jen Beagin and Patricia Lockwood should read on. Fans of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull, buzz off!”
“Kittentits is a bizarro wonderland of a book, a tasty kaleidoscopic freak show that will remind readers of a marvelously raunchy Katherine Dunn. The novel is just as much fun as it is juicy and disturbed—I enjoyed every wild and frenzied minute of it.”
“Holly Wilson has the stealth ability to make you laugh while breaking your heart. Reader beware: Kittentits may seem sweet, but she has claws.”
“Holly Wilson’s Kittentits is sacred and profane, filled with big emotions, all amplified by grief. Molly is a wholly unique and charismatic narrator, navigating (and creating) chaos as she seeks out a way to hold onto both the living and dead. This is a wildly funny and utterly convincing coming-of-age novel like nothing I’ve read before.”
“Part Cruddy, part otherworldly hellion parable, Holly Wilson’s Kittentits is a comet ripping through a Walmart, a carnival ride launching into the sun. Molly’s voice is raw and true, and this book is fun as shit. Kittentits is unforgettable.”
“Molly is one of the greatest young female characters I’ve had the luck of reading since I picked up Joy Williams’s The Quick and the Dead back in 2000 . . . I TRULY LOVE THIS BOOK!!!!!!”
Holly Wilson
Holly Wilson’s work has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Redivider, Northwest Review, Short Story, New Stories from the South, and elsewhere. She was a Kingsbury Fellow at Florida State University, where she received a PhD in Creative Writing. She grew up in Kansas and currently makes her home in Fort Atkinson, WI, where she lives with her son, Theo. She’s an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
