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Very Cold People

By Sarah Manguso
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Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
In Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso explores the hidden depths of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, a town once famed for its elite families but now overshadowed by secrets and silence. Through the eyes of Ruthie, the story reveals how the facade of social primness conceals a darker legacy of violence and emotional repression, reflecting the suffocating pressure of growing up in a small town bound by old traditions and unspoken harms.
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Format: Paperback / softback
$2499
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This novel will resonate with readers interested in literary fiction that examines complex social dynamics, family legacies, and emotional restraint in small-town settings. Fans of thought-provoking and atmospheric narratives, as well as admirers of authors like John Cheever and Elena Ferrante, will find this compelling.

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Acclaimed writer Sarah Manguso makes her fiction debut with an icy, furious novel about the way in which a society can ignore and enable the abuse of young women, narrated by the daughter of just such an abusive mother.

'No-one's there to watch her, so she just waits for the lights to turn on, waits to begin her performance.'

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Once home to the country's most illustrious families, Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is now an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape, Ruthie learns how the town's prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history and how silence often masks a legacy of harm – from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends.

In Very Cold People, Sarah Manguso reveals the suffocating constraints of growing up in a very old, and very cold, small town. Here lies a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smouldering rage...

Guardian's Best Fiction of 2022

‘Chilling . . . deeply impressive’ - Guardian

‘A masterclass in unease’ - The Observer

‘One of the most original and exciting writers working in English today’ - Jhumpa Lahiri

Longlisted for the Wingate Prize 2023

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Very Cold People has been lauded as a masterclass in unease (Observer) and described as chilling and deeply impressive (The Guardian). Sarah Manguso's writing is praised for its originality and power, with endorsements from notable authors such as Jhumpa Lahiri. The book confronts themes of class, silence, and abuse with a literary style that is both necessary and genre-defying.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781529055290

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 13 April 2023

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Picador

Audience: General / adult

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 14.0mm

Width: 130.0mm

Height: 196.0mm

Weight: 152g

Pages: 208

Collections

Fiction General Fiction Literary Fiction Sarah Manguso

About the Author

Sarah Manguso is the author of 300 Arguments, Ongoingness, The Guardians, The Two Kinds of Decay, Hard to Admit and Harder to Escape, Siste Viator, and The Captain Lands in Paradise. Her work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Rome Prize, and her books have been translated into Chinese, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Her poems have won a Pushcart Prize and appeared in four editions of the Best American Poetry series, and her essays have appeared in in Harper's, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Magazine, and the Paris Review. She has taught graduate and undergraduate writing at institutions including Columbia, NYU, Princeton, Scripps College, and the University of Iowa. She lives in Los Angeles.

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