NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A raucous, whip-smart collection of stories featuring retro-feminist ladies who lunch.” —Elle
Meet the women of American Housewife. They wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it’s cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies from the oven.
Taking us from a haunted pre-war Manhattan apartment building to the unique initiation ritual of a book club, these twelve delightfully demented stories are a refreshing and wicked answer to the question: “What do housewives do all day?”
“"Satirical humor as twisted as screw-top bottles -- and more effervescent than the stuff that pours out of them...”
“Darkly comic stories about, and for, ‘grown-ass’ ladies.” —People
“A raucous, whip-smart collection of stories featuring retro-feminist ladies who lunch.” —Elle
“Satirical humor as twisted as screw-top bottles—and more effervescent than the stuff that pours out of them....Ellis is a master of the unhinged.” —Heller McAlpin, NPR
“Steeped in the Southern Gothic tradition. Flannery O’Connor would turn green with equal parts sick and envy.... Dark, deadpan and truly inventive.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Delightful.... Ellis’s stories start in a place that’s quite familiar—the domestic sphere of New York City’s ritzy Upper East Side—and end in a place that’s decidedly not.” —Vogue.com
“The perfect cocktail of Amy Sedaris’s wacky wit and Margaret Atwood’s insight.” —Elle.com
“Catchy, smart and very, very funny. . . . The housewives in [American Housewife] share Ellis’s wry sensibility. But as comical as they are—and they are very—these women also have a sly depth.” —The Washington Post
“Hilarious and moving, terrifying and shockingly strange, every page of American Housewife is driven by the fierce and fearless voice of Helen Ellis. Mixing together reality TV, book clubs, the Upper East Side and classic whodunits, these characters never forget to dab Chanel No. 5 behind their ears before murdering their neighbors.” —Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief
“Surreal [and] sensationally funny.” —BookPage
“Funny, biting. . . . Think Megan Mullally’s Karen Walker character (from Will and Grace) meets Shirley Jackson.” —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“[A] wonderful, charged, lyrical, intelligent book.” —Rebecca Lee, author of Bobcat and Other Stories
“Addictive and full of pitch-perfect observations.” —J. Courtney Sullivan, The New York Times
“Utterly winning.” —Hannah Pittard, author of Reunion
“The funniest short story collection of [the year]. . . . As effervescent and intoxicating as champagne punch.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Ellis has forged her own molten, mind-twisting storytelling mode. Her pacing is swift and eviscerating, and her characters’ rage and hunger for revenge are off the charts.” —Booklist (starred review)
“If anyone can make the Real Housewives look dull, it’s the women in this collection.” —Cosmopolitan
“The type of [characters] you’d love to have over for a dinner party (or just wine).” —Glamour.com
“If you seek solace in fearless women who can whip up Martha Stewart-style five course meals after having an epic breakdown, then this book is for you.” —The Daily News
“I want to throw a cocktail party for Helen Ellis's beautiful, demented, touching heroines. I’d ply them with gin and Jell-O salad, admire their brooches, and force them to give up their deepest secrets.” —Eliza Kennedy, author of I Take You
HELEN ELLIS is the author of Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light, Southern Lady Code, American Housewife and Eating the Cheshire Cat. Raised in Alabama, she lives with her husband in New York City. She is a poker player and a plant lady. You can find her on Twitter @WhatIDoAllDay and Instagram @HelenEllisAuthor.
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