Staff Pick
Dark, experimental, and sardonic. If you enjoy authors who play with form, this book is for you. Recommended By Lauren S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The haunting debut novel that put Kate Zambreno on the map, O Fallen Angel, is a provocative, voice-driven story of a family in crisis — and, more broadly, the crisis of the American family — now repackaged and with a new introduction by Lidia Yuknavitch.
Inspired by Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, Kate Zambreno's brilliant novel is a triptych of modern-day America set in a banal Midwestern landscape, told from three distinct, unforgettable points of view.
There is "Mommy," a portrait of housewife psychosis, fenced in by her own small mind. There is "Maggie," Mommy's unfortunate daughter whom she infects with fairytales. Then there is the mysterious martyr figure Malachi, a Cassandra in army fatigues, the Septimus Smith to Mommy's Mrs. Dalloway, who stands at the foot of the highway holding signs of fervent prophecy, gaping at the bottomless abyss of the human condition, while SUVs scream past.
Deeply poignant, sometimes hilarious, and other times horrifying, O Fallen Angel is satire at its best.
Review
“But for all its dank humor and brutal dissection of the nuclear family, O Fallen Angel is also a philosophical novel, deeply concerned with the problem of freedom.” Electric Literature
Review
“... the timing of O Fallen Angel’s rerelease fuckedly transitions it from Sad Girl Cult Classic to Great American Novel in écriture féminine.” Sam Cohen, Weird Sister
Review
“Reading Kate Zambreno’s first novel… is like getting a dose of electroshock therapy — a galvanizing current of electricity straight into the brain... O Fallen Angel is blackly funny and brutal, a radical and clear-sighted antidote for banality and complacency.” Staff Picks, Paris Review