SHORTLISTED FOR THE LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE
'Audacious, poetic, wondrous' Sunday Express
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
Imprint: Penguin
Published: 03/10/2019
ISBN: 9780241989289
Length: 288 Pages
RRP: £12.99
'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'
Strange and powerful . . . It's a book brimming with longing, with heartbreak. It's a coming-of-age by coming into somebody else
Audacious... Smith's beautiful, poetic prose transforms this strange coming-of-age story into something wondrous
Rich and vivid, [a] hauntingly gorgeous debut novel... Smith captures this unstable world with matter-of-fact poetry, spare and sensual and surprisingly funny
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
This is a mysterious and strangely exciting debut. Smith is a poet, and writes in sensory driven, soul-tapping prose.
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
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
An eerie exploration of desperation and the complexities of maternal love... Sure to be a page-turner
A stunningly evocative debut novel