SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE
For fans of Where the Crawdads Sing, a richly atmospheric and darkly unforgettable debut about lost innocence and life in the margins...
'Remarkable. Fiction debuts this accomplished don't come along very often... Smith is a writer of immense talent and rare imagination [and] this novel reads like a miracle' - NPR
'To be honest, we just weren't looking that hard. Nobody knew where to search and it was summer vacation anyway - but that wasn't the reason nobody looked for Jude.'
One summer, a teenager disappears from Deep Valley, Pennsylvania. Jude, nicknamed Marilou, is beautiful, intelligent, and mixed race. The alarm is raised, the cops search for her - but not as hard as they would if she were a white girl. Watching this mystery unfold is Cindy, a younger girl from a white trash family, who has idolised Jude for years. And so, in the absence of anyone to give a damn about her, Cindy starts to slip out of her own life and into the space Jude left behind...
Marilou Is Everywhere is a story about the desperation to escape - and the terrible, intimate crimes we commit to do so. Swimming in the rich melancholia of rural America, it is a fall from grace, a moral provocation, and a heartbreaking account of life in the margins.
'Lyrical, sexy, humane, and just a total pleasure to read' Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot
'One of the most exquisitely written books I've read in a long time. A haunting novel about craving escape so badly you're willing to erase yourself, by a writer I would follow anywhere' Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
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Imprint: Penguin
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Published: 04/02/2021
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ISBN: 9780241986516
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Length: 288 Pages
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RRP: £8.99
Reviews
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Remarkable. Fiction debuts this accomplished don't come along very often at all, and Marilou Is Everywhere proves Smith a writer of immense talent and rare imagination... This novel reads like a miracle.
NPR
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Strange and powerful... That Smith is also a poet comes as no surprise. Her prose - rich and bursting, verdantly Appalachian - puts you vividly in this world, where the banal is rendered strangely and tenderly... This is a book interested in people not just unglamorous, but overlooked. It's a book brimming with longing, with heartbreak. It's a coming-of-age by coming into somebody else
The New York Times
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Audacious... Smith's beautiful, poetic prose transforms this strange coming-of-age story into something wondrous
Daily Express, Best New Paperbacks of Summer 2020
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Rich and vivid, [a] hauntingly gorgeous debut novel... Smith captures this unstable world with matter-of-fact poetry, spare and sensual and surprisingly funny
Kirkus (STARRED REVIEW)
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One of the most unforgettable books I've read this year, offering a uniquely haunting, but also disarmingly funny and lyrical look at loss, love and the desire to be seen
NYLON
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This is a mysterious and strangely exciting debut. Smith is a poet, and writes in sensory driven, soul-tapping prose.
Booklist
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Enthralling, startling and stunning... The prose leaves you raw, defying you to articulate what the book is because it feels too immense, promising no easy answers
Paste
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Feral, alert and hungry, an unsettling coming-of-age story. Her words create a picture of desperation and absence and a poignant story of accountability
BUST
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An eerie exploration of desperation and the complexities of maternal love... Sure to be a page-turner
Lit Hub (Most Anticipated Books of 2019)
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A stunningly evocative debut novel
Boston Globe
