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'A beautiful, startling demystification of queer family . . . a portrait of a woman who is, at once, wholly ordinary and not quite like any literary mother who came before'
Vogue If she's being honest, Sammie Lucas is scared of her son. Working from home in the close quarters of their Florida house, she lives with one wary eye peeled on Samson, a sullen, unknowable boy who resists her every attempt to bond with him. Uncertain in her own feelings about motherhood, she tries her best - driving, cleaning, cooking, prodding him to finish projects for school - while growing increasingly resentful of Monika, her confident but absent wife. As Samson grows from feral toddler to surly teenager, Sammie's life begins to deteriorate into a mess of unruly behaviour, and her struggle to create a picture-perfect queer family unravels. When her son's hostility finally spills over into physical aggression, Sammie must confront her role in the mess - and the possibility that it will never be clean again.
Written with warmth and wit,
With Teeth is a thought-provoking portrait of the delicate fabric of family - and the many ways it can be torn apart.
'Exquisitely unsettling, brilliantly layered, darkly funny'
Casey McQuiston
'[A] gloriously messy, eminently Floridian tale of family dysfunction'
The Atlantic
'Absolutely captivating and scathingly frank . . . strangely shrewd and tender . . . Arnett is that rare, brave writer willing to articulate the darkest thoughts even the best parents entertain while trudging along through the most challenging job in the world'
Washington Post 'Come for the wackiness and wonder of queer family dynamics, stay for the poignant portrait of motherhood on the brink'
O, The Oprah Magazine
'Warm and witty[,] compassionate and unflinching, Arnett's story of a queer family in crisis illuminates poignant truths about parenthood, aging, and the ties that bind us'
Esquire
'Arnett's sense of humour and celebration of queerness, absurdity, Florida heat and outsidership [feels] like permission to live with more joy and less fear'
T Kira Madden, Bustle
About the author
Kristen Arnett is the New York Times bestselling author of the debut novel Mostly Dead Things. She is a queer fiction and essay writer. She was awarded Ninth Letter's Literary Award in Fiction and is a columnist for Literary Hub. Her work has appeared at the New York Times, North American Review, The Normal School, Gulf Coast, TriQuarterly, Guernica, Buzzfeed, Electric Literature, McSweeneys, PBS Newshour, Bennington Review, the Guardian, Salon, the Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her story collection, Felt in the Jaw, was published by Split Lip Press and was awarded the 2017 Coil Book Award. She is a Spring 2020 Shearing Fellow at Black Mountain Institute. You can find her on Twitter here: @Kristen_Arnett
Summary
From the author of the New York Times-bestselling sensation Mostly Dead Things a tense, funny and moving story of two mothers, their difficult son, and the limitations of marriage, parenthood and love
Foreword
From the author of the New York Times-bestselling sensation Mostly Dead Things a tense, funny and moving story of two mothers, their difficult son, and the limitations of marriage, parenthood and love
Additional text
The beloved author behind Mostly Dead Things returns with a story of a queer family and the picture-perfect life they can't quite create. Raising their son Samson in the warmth of Florida, Sammie and Monika want to be the ideal lesbian couple. But Samson is distant, maybe even dangerous, and as he grows older he becomes downright hostile. As their relationships fall apart, Sammie must untangle how her family became this messy - and whether there's any way to fix it
