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?Completely original, full of surprise, humor, grief, and wisdom.'
Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
?Darkly funny and poignant'
Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train
?[Polzin] writes beautifully about everything'
New York Times
Meet Gloria, Gam Gam, Darkness, Miss Hennepin County, and their unlikely owner. Over the course of a single year, our nameless narrator heroically tries to keep her small brood of four chickens alive despite the seemingly endless challenges that caring for another creature entails. From the freezing nights of a brutal winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined.
Brood by Jackie Polzin is a darkly witty, deeply moving and startling original debut novel of motherhood and grief, full of sorrow, joy and unrelenting hope. Perfect for fans of Jenny Offill and Elizabeth Strout.
About the author
Jackie Polzin lives in St Paul, Minnesota with her husband and children.
Summary
'Fans of Elizabeth Strout and Anne Tyler will devour it.' - Daily Mirror
Darkly witty, deeply moving – Jackie Polzin's Brood is a startlingly original debut novel about motherhood, marriage and grief, full of sorrow, joy and unrelenting hope.
Over the course of a single year, our nameless narrator heroically tries to keep her small brood of four chickens alive despite the seemingly endless challenges that caring for another creature entails – and all the while struggling to confront her own recent loss. From the forty-below nights of a brutal Minnesota winter to a sweltering summer which brings a surprise tornado, she battles predators, bad luck, and the uncertainty of a future that may not look anything like the one she always imagined.
'Full of surprise, humor, grief, and wisdom.' - Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
'The most vibrant and compelling slice of life I’ve been privy to in a great while.' - Claire Lombardo, author of The Most Fun We Ever Had
'Splendidly unsentimental, quirky, witty, smart and a complete one-off.' - Clare Chambers, author of Small Pleasures
Foreword
In Brood, a stunning new voice depicts one woman’s attempt to keep her four chickens alive while reflecting on a recent loss of a miscarriage.
Additional text
What pleasant alchemy is this novel? Polzin’s debut conjures humors and sadness in Minnesota, where the narrator ponders the potential of motherhood, a pending move, and the strangeness of raising animals who force us to consider the world in a new, slower, sideways perspective (which leads us to wonder: maybe the strangeness is us?).
