Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Oshetsky's potent latest (after Poor Deer) dives into the volatile inner world of a young woman who fantasizes about a life beyond her abusive marriage. Celia Dent, 19, works as a billing operator for the phone company in 1970s San Francisco. Each night, she takes the train home to Redwood City and her controlling husband, Drew, a surgical technician 11 years her senior. Their marriage was brokered by Celia's mother, who's since died. When a grisly workplace scandal--an adulterous affair that ends in a murder--ripples through the phone company, Celia becomes enthralled by the mix of danger and desire. She begins to crave "revolutionary changes" in her life, "violent changes, even," and she imagines attacking Drew with her mother's old nail file, burying it "deep inside ear." She takes increasingly bold steps toward fulfilling her homicidal and sexual fantasies, from buying a knife in a pawn shop and accepting a ride home from an attractive train passenger to arranging an assignation with a frequent caller at the phone company. Celia's mounting frenzy is rendered in razor-sharp prose, and Oshetsky blends noir sensibilities with their signature surrealism, effortlessly slipping between dark humor and unnerving sensuality. The result is thrilling. Agent: Alexa Stark, Writers House. (Feb.)Correction: A previous version of this review used the wrong pronoun to refer to the author.
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Review by Library Journal Review
It's the 1970s, and 19-year-old Celia has recently lost her mother. Celia feels fortunate to have a stable job at the telephone company, even if it's in the department where customers call to complain about their bills. She feels lucky to be married to Drew, despite his mother's open dislike of her and his increasingly threatening actions. Still, it's not until a jealous husband kills her coworker that Celia wonders what it would be like to live an independent life, a life on the edge. Celia's gradual breaking away starts with light rebellion at her job and going out for after-work drinks with the other girls at the telephone company, defying Drew, who wants his wife to return home immediately after work. However, as Celia starts to find independence, her husband's cruelty toward her ramps up. VERDICT Oshetsky's (Poor Deer) novel deftly rattles toward an inevitable collision course for its characters. Readers who enjoy noir plots injected with comedy will enjoy.--Jennifer Mills
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
In 1974, a 19-year-old telephone company employee in an abusive marriage finds her way to freedom. "Now this Sock Man had dubbed me with his sock, and had claimed me as kin, and I remembered what I had always known: I was Daughter of Dirk. I was Minion of the Crab Queen. I was in a full fever. I wasn't a normal girl. I was supernatural. I was uncanny. I was magnificent." When we meet Celia Dent, she has not yet become aware of her uncanny magnificence: She is working at the telephone company where her job is to disconnect the lines of those with unpaid bills--"We called itripping your lips"--caught up, along with her co-workers, in the grisly details of the murder of one of their colleagues by her husband, which occurred with a second colleague hastily hidden under the bed, but a used condom on the floor in plain view. The death of Vivienne Bianco is oddly titillating to Celia, which she knows is not the right reaction, but ascribes to the oppressive and dull reality of her daily life. Orphaned and alone by 17, she'd made the grave error of marrying a brutish man she refers to as "my Drew," and her home life is so unpleasant that her tedious commute on the train and her depressing job (where she must deal with unsavory callers like the Sock Man) feel like a welcome escape. The death of Vivienne Bianco sets something new in motion, and Oshetsky is an author who relishes bold and sometimes surreal swipes of plot--more melodrama and mayhem are on the way, noirish twists delivered with a deadpan comic spin. With her collection of desecrated Barbies, her naïveté, and her poor impulse control, Celia is a fetching character for whom the reader dearly wishes a positive outcome, despite all the dead bodies that seem to be accumulating around her. Darkly charming, highly original, and fiendishly clever. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
