Ducks, Newburyport
by Lucy Ellmann · 2019
Buy on Amazon"Peeling apples for tartes tatin, an Ohio mother wonders how to exist in a world of distraction and fake facts, besieged by a tweet-happy president and trigger-happy neighbors, all of them oblivious to what Dupont has dumped into the rivers and what's happening at the factory farm down the interstate--not to mention what was done to the land's first inhabitants. A torrent of consciousness, narrated in a single sentence by a woman whose wandering thoughts are as comfortably familiar as they are heartrendingly honest, Ducks, Newburyport is a fearless indictment of our contemporary moment."--
Recommended by
"It’s the stream of consciousness of an Ohio housewife who muses on life, politics, society and nature, and it’s absolutely compelling. The voice she creates is fascinating. It’s a fantastic comic riff that feels a lot like an updated, wisecracking version of James Joyce’s Molly Bloom. You get the sense of a whole life and a real imagination at work. And although it’s a thousand pages, you read it with energy and pace and verve. It’s just a great ride. Everybody I have given it to has loved it. Oh hell no! In many ways, it’s the easiest to read of all the books on the shortlist because of the way the author handles the reader. She takes you on a wonderful dance and it’s a joy to play with that."
The Best Fiction of 2019 · fivebooks.com
Publishers Weekly's Best Books — 2019 · publishersweekly.com