Chosen Family: A Novel

Chosen Family: A Novel

• An exuberant and irreverently funny novel about one gorgeously messy friendship-feud-unrequited-love-affair set in Sydney across eighteen years.

  Nell Argall and Eve Bowman are both brilliant, odd, and friendless. When they meet on the brutal battlefield that is their posh all girls’ high school during their first year there, both their lives are changed forever. From school, to university, to careers, Nell and Eve’s relationship is a life raft that is also a poison apple that is also a Medusan stare, frozen in time.

  When the passion, guilt, shame, and joy that perpetually twists and turns between them finally implodes, Nell abruptly walks away, leaving Eve alone at the helm of the gloriously unorthodox family they’ve built with their seven-year-old daughter, Lake. Eve finds herself left wondering: Can the wounds of adolescent betrayal ever really heal? Can we ever really understand what’s going on in someone else’s head? And what’s love got to do, got to do with it?

  Written with Gray’s characteristic big-heartedness and dark wit,Chosen Familyis a queer modern classic that reminds us again and again that sometimes the most fulfilling and life-saving relationships are the ones that are the hardest to define.

  US

  "Funny, contemporary and attuned to the subtle negotiations that shape friendships and first loves." —Sydney Morning Herald

  "Funny, profound, and deeply true,Chosen Familyis a tender story about love, identity, family, and whether it is possible to combine the three into something entirely new. I turned the pages so fast, it felt like reading a mystery, except the only mystery is the spectacular complexity of the human heart. Wow, what a novel."—Holly Brickley, author ofDeep Cuts

  “With great wit, candor, and empathy, Madeleine Gray’sChosen Familytells a story of queer community, one where the lines between friendship and love blur, where characters try to forge new paths, sometimes stumbling gloriously along the way. Smart, moving, and funny,Chosen Familyis an ode to those who reject convention in hopes of something brighter, truer, and more alive.”—Thomas Grattan, author ofIn Tongues

  “I laughed, I cried, I fell in love withChosen Family.Beautiful, devastating, hilarious and full of life.”—Jessica Stanley, author ofConsider Yourself Kissed

  "Madeleine Gray’sChosen Familyresists the tidy arc of the queer coming-of-age novel, which is exactly what makes it worth your time. Nell and Eve's friendship — eighteen years of misfire and repair, desire unnamed and finally, devastatingly, named — unfolds with the comic precision of a writer who knows that intimacy is mostly a series of near-misses. Gray is after something more elastic than a love story: the chosen family of the title isn't a consolation prize; it's the whole point."—Hannah Pittard, author ofIf You Love It, Let It Kill You

  "Chosen Familyis a dynamo of a novel. Madeleine Gray writes with swagger and wryness, crafting a will-they-won't-they for the ages. This is work that begs us to consider the breadth of friendship, love, and forgiveness. What do we owe each other? What are we willing to sacrifice in order to keep one another safe? Gorgeous, hilarious work. I ate this one up."—Kristen Arnett, author ofMostly Dead Things

  “A passionate ode to friendship that is sharp and hilarious funny, brave and utopian, sexy but not too serious about it. Most of all it felt deeply real and true.”—Niamh Campbell, author ofThis Happy

  “Whateveritis, Gray has it!”—Nigella Lawson

• Gray, Madeleine
• ISBN: 9780063485709