The tradwife imp of the mind
Kerry Cullen on House of Beth
Never before have I released a podstack to tease a book’s publication, but there’s a first time for everything, subscriber! And what a first this is!
I’ve known Kerry Cullen for a long time: she was part of the editorial team that acquired my first novel way back in 2015, and she helped make it the best book it could be. When I saw earlier this year that she had a debut novel of her own slated to hit the shelves, I became like a lit-seeking missile: Must find. Must read. Immediately.
House of Beth is everything I know Kerry Cullen the writer/editor/thinker/human to be: blazingly smart, mordantly funny, wonderfully weird and warm in a way that makes you feel far less alone in the world. It’s a book about OCD and being online and the impossibility of affording one’s medical copays, about loneliness and tradwifery, about sliding out of the mess of your own life and into the mess of someone else’s. In other words, it’s #PeakMillennial fiction in the best possible way.
Not surprisingly, talking with Kerry about her book was exactly as fun and thought-provoking as reading it. Come for the discussion of debuting as a novelist and the vagaries of identity fiction and stay for the sizzlingly good insights about youth queer camp and the alleged “sexiness” of various mental health disorders. Let me ask you this, subscriber: What do you know about the farmlands of New Jersey? Or the deep-rooted fears that unite groups as diverse as Evangelical Christians and trans people? Or the wan little husks of wan little ghosts? No matter what, I can guarantee you’ll know more after watching this fabulous interview with Kerry!
Like what you just heard? Please run, don’t walk, to Bookshop.org to snag a copy of House of Beth!
can't wait for this one to hit the shelves
Love it!