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Take What You NeedStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
Local DescriptionMatilda Bookshop Review I devoured this almost perfect book in one sitting. Told from the vividly realised perspectives of Jean and Leah, stepmother and stepdaughter respectively, Take What You Need transmutes uncomfortable subjects such as Trump’s America, economic precariousness and toxic masculinity into something compulsively readable. What makes the novel sing is the depiction of how art, in this case intricately layered metal sculptures, can transport us from the mundane to the sublime. Novey’s touch as an author is delicate, and it is seemingly only in retrospect that you come to understand the vaulting ambition of this wonderful novel. Gavin Description
Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who's sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah's urban life with her young family, she's revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother's hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition. Reviews'Novey fully renders the inarticulable parts of artmaking - the antagonism of an artist's material, thepleasure in that difficulty, the way it troubles tidy ideasof legacy.' - Raven Leilani Author description
Idra Novey is the award-winning author of the novels Ways to Disappear and Those Who Knew. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages and she's written for the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. She teaches at Princeton University and in the MFA Program at New York University. |