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★著名小說家瑪格麗特．愛特伍盛情推薦

辛辣幽默刻劃家庭日常黑暗面，書評譽為兼有哥德驚悚、雪莉．傑克森（Sherry Jackson）與瑪格麗特．愛特伍（Margaret Atwood）之風，愛特伍本人讀後大為盛讚，在《衛報》選為2015年個人最愛書籍之一！

A sharp, funny, delightfully unhinged collection of stories set in the dark world of domesticity, American Housewife features murderous ladies who lunch, celebrity treasure hunters, and the best bra fitter south of the Mason Dixon line.

Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation ritual of a book club to the getaway car of a pageant princess on the lam, from the gallery opening of a tinfoil artist to the fitting room of a legendary lingerie shop. Vicious, fresh, and nutty as a poisoned Goo Goo Cluster, American Housewife is an uproarious, pointed commentary on womanhood.

 

HELEN ELLIS is the acclaimed author of Eating the Cheshire Cat. She is a poker player who competes on the national tournament circuit. Raised in Alabama, she lives with her husband in New York City.

 

“Satirical humor as twisted as screw-top bottles — and more effervescent than the stuff that pours out of them… American Housewife is a better cure for winter blahs than hot chocolate… The opening story captures her frisky, subversive take on domesticity… Ellis's [one-liners] are outrageously good… ‘What I Do All Day’ is a three-page tour-de-force, boasting as many dazzlers as a wealthy Upper East Side matron's jewelry box… Amid the furious activity, Ellis works her story to a touching punchline you never saw coming. This is shock and awww writing… Ellis is a master of the unhinged monologue, delivered by narrators whose conventional, seemingly benign, honeyed patter gradually reveals the disturbing demon within.”—Heller McAlpin, NPR

“The 12 compact tales are delightfully dark and leave readers always rooting for the housewife, no matter how twisted her plots…. With punchy writing and unique conundrums, American Housewife can be devoured in a sitting. Resist. The tales are best consumed like the pinot grigio some of these housewives enjoy — daily.”—Christina Ledbetter, The Washington Post

“Ms. Ellis, 45, calls herself a housewife. But that only begins to describe her. She is also a shrewd poker player who regularly competes in high-stakes tournaments, and the author of a forthcoming story collection, American Housewife, that focuses a dark and humorous lens on the domestic… The stories are addictive and full of pitch-perfect observations like, ‘the only thing with less character than Chardonnay is wainscoting’ and ‘Delores was as fertile as a Duggar.’ They are populated by, among others, neighbors in a co-op whose fight over decorating turns deadly; women in a book club trying to seduce a new member into carrying their babies; and a chilling series of dead doormen.” —J. Courtney Sullivan, The New York Times