American Housewife - Couverture souple

Ellis, Helen

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1101970995 ISBN 13 : 9781101970997

Editeur : Anchor, 2016

A propos du livre

Extrait :

WHAT I DO ALL DAY

Inspired by Beyoncé, I stallion-walk to the toaster. I show my husband a burnt spot that looks like the island where we honeymooned, kiss him good-bye, and tell him what time to be home for our party.

I go to the grocery store and find that everyone else has gone to the grocery store and, as I maneuver my cart through Chips and Nuts traffic, I get grocery aisle rage. I see a lost child and assume it’s an angry ghost. Fearing cold and flu season, I fist-bump the credit card signature pad.

Back home, I get a sickening feeling and am relieved to find out it’s just my husband’s coat hung the wrong way in a closet. I break into a sweat when I find a Sharpie cap, but not the pen. I answer my phone and scream obscenities at an automated call. I worry the Butterball hotline ladies are lonely. I follow a cat on Twitter and click “view photo” when a caption reads: “#YUCK.” I regret clicking that photo. I weep because I am lucky enough to have a drawer just for glitter.

I shred cheese. I berate a pickle jar. I pump the salad spinner like a CPR dummy. I strangle defrosted spinach and soak things in brandy. I casserole. I pinwheel. I toothpick. I bacon. I iron a tablecloth and think about eating lint from the dryer, but then think better of that because I am sane. I rearrange furniture like a Neanderthal. I mayonnaise water rings. I level picture frames.

I take a break and drink Dr Pepper through a Twizzler. I watch ten minutes of my favorite movie on TV and lip-synch Molly Ringwald: “I loathe the bus.” I know every word. Sixteen Candles is my Star Wars. I hop in the shower and assure myself that behind every good woman is a little back fat. I cry because I don’t have the upper-arm strength to flatiron my hair. I mascara my gray roots. I smoke my eyes. I paint my lips. I drown my sorrows with Chanel No. 5.

At the party, I kiss my husband hello. I loathe guests who sneeze into the crooks of their elbows. I can’t be convinced winter white is a thing. I study long-married couples and decide that wives are like bras: sometimes the most matronly are the most supportive.

I feign interest in skiing, golf, politics, religion, owl collections, shell collections, charity benefits, school fund-raisers, green juice, the return of eighties step classes, the return of nineties grunge, a resurgence of bridge clubs, and Ping-Pong mania.

I say, “My breath is the Pinot Grigio-est.”

I say, “I am perfectly happy not being a Kennedy.”

I say, “I’d watch a show called Ghost Hoarders. Why is that not a show?”

I say, “You can take your want of a chocolate fountain and go straight to hell.”

I see everyone out and face the cold hard truth that no one will ever load my dishwasher right. I scroll through iPhone photos and see that if I delete pictures of myself with a double chin, I will erase all proof of my glorious life. I fix myself a hot chocolate because it is a gateway drug to reading. I think I couldn’t love my husband more, and then he vacuums all the glitter.

Revue de presse :

“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  

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Anchor
• Date d'édition: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1101970995
• ISBN 13: 9781101970997
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 208