Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett
Mostly Dead Things by Kristen Arnett
"Ok, all you lovers of the weird and wonderful...your next book is here. Jessa Morton was always her father's right hand, and similarly stoic in her dealings with people...but when he commits suicide and leaves her in charge of his failing taxidermy business, she has to confront not only her own issues, but her family's issues, too (and there are MANY). Arnett is GREAT at black humor, but she's just as good at plumbing the emotional depths in this one of-a-kind story." - Recommended by Erika
One morning, Jessa-Lynn Morton walks into the family taxidermy shop to find that her father has committed suicide, right there on one of the metal tables. Shocked and grieving, Jessa steps up to manage the failing business, while the rest of the Morton family crumbles. Her mother starts sneaking into the shop to make aggressively lewd art with the taxidermied animals. Her brother Milo withdraws, struggling to function. And Brynn, Milo's wife--and the only person Jessa's ever been in love with--walks out without a word. As Jessa seeks out less-than-legal ways of generating income, her mother's art escalates--picture a figure of her dead husband and a stuffed buffalo in an uncomfortably sexual pose--and the Mortons reach a tipping point. For the first time, Jessa has no choice but to learn who these people truly are, and ultimately how she fits alongside them.