Synopses & Reviews
A story of friendship, art, sex, and curly hair: an audaciously witty debut tracing the
pas de deux of lust and love between two young, uncertain, conflicted art students.
At their New England art school, Paulina and Fran both stand apart from the crowd. Paulina is striking and sexually adventurous—a self-proclaimed queen bee with a devastating mean-girl streak. With her gorgeous untamed head of curly hair, Fran is quirky, sweet, and sexually innocent. An aspiring painter whose potential outstrips her confidence, she floats dreamily through criticisms and dance floors alike. On a school trip to Norway, the girls are drawn together, each disarmed by the others charisma.
Though their bond is instant and powerful, its also wracked by complications. When Fran winds up dating one of Paulinas ex-boyfriends, an incensed Paulina becomes determined to destroy the couple, creating a rift that will shape their lives well past the halcyon days of art school.
Crackling with bon mots and knowing snapshots of that moment when the carefree cocoon of adolescence opens into the permanent, unknowable future, Paulina & Fran is both a sparkling dance party of a novel, and the debut novel of a writer with rare insight into the complexities of obsession, friendship, and prickly, ever-elusive love.
Review
“A party in paragraphs that socks you in the mouth when you least expect. Id pay tuition to this book if it meant I could stay the whole year.” Amelia Gray, author of < i=""> Threats <> and < i=""> Gutshot <>
Review
“When it comes to the dance-hump mating rituals of art school kids, no one does it better or funnier or with as much stylistic aplomb as Rachel B. Glaser.” Adam Wilson, author of < i=""> What's Important Is Feeling <> and < i=""> Flatscreen <>
Review
“This novel is like what a mirror would write if it could type. Rachel B. Glaser has written a wildly funny, sharp, wonderful book that displays the light and dark, the lies and truths, of what it takes to make and keep a friend--without losing sight of oneself.” Lindsay Hunter, author of < i=""> Ugly Girls <> and < i=""> Daddy's <>
Review
“Reading Paulina and Fran is like watching a beautiful woman expertly throw knives into a wall. Viciously funny, tender, and sexy all at once, every page full of deft and skewering observations. No one is spared.” Catherine Lacey, author of < i=""> Nobody Is Ever Missing <>
Review
“A gorgeous book of nerve endings, it manages to capture the rawness and restlessness of youth, friendship, and artists in the making. She gets to the bone of those quixotic, beautiful years when everything matters, most things hurt, and you dont know who you are. Ive never read anything quite like it.” Christopher Bollen, author of < i=""> Orient <>
Synopsis
At an elite New England art school, two young women collide. Paulina is a sexually adventurous wannabe queen bee with a devastating mean- girl streak. Fran is a gifted yet reluctant painter with gorgeous curly hair and uncertain dreams. On a trip to Norway the two are drawn together, but as adult life encroaches, jealousy and unexpected love tear them apart. Rachel B. Glaser's Paulina & Fran is both a sparkling dance party of a novel and a wicked, wistful snapshot of that moment when the carefree cocoon of adolescence opens into the permanent, unknowable future.
About the Author
Rachel B. Glaser is the author of the story collection Pee On Water and the poetry collection MOODS. She is a recipient of the McSweeney's Amanda Davis Fiction Award, and her work has appeared in the anthologies 30 Under 30 and New American Stories. Nylon has cited her as one of the "Coolest Female Poets to Know Right Now." She lives in Northampton, Massachusetts.