Reminiscent of Lydia Kiesling’s The Golden State and Stephanie Land’s Maid.'-Marcy Dermansky, The New York Times Book Review Lungfish reads with a slowly building terror. Gilliss’s short, artfully titled chapters ('So,' 'Catch,' 'Familiar,') sometimes slip effortlessly into something like poetry. Gilliss’s language is an elemental force. Meghan Gilliss’s debut is a brilliant and heartbreaking novel about addiction, doubt, marriage, motherhood, and learning to see in the dark.Ī Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of the YearĪ Millions Most Anticipated Book of the Year Relying on the island for sustenance and answers-bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious little green crabs smells held by the damp walls of the house, field guides and religious texts, a failed invention left behind by her missing father-Tuck lives moment-by-moment through the absurdity, beauty, paranoia, and hunger that shoots through her life, as her husband struggles to detox.Įxquisitely written and formally daring, Lungfish tells the story of a woman grappling through the lies she has been told-and those she has told herself-to arrive at the truth of who she is and where she must go. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives-or before they are found out. Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Here is storytelling at its best.' -Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to Earth

Here is a story about the islands we build and carry with us. ' Lungfish is a force of nature-a deeply felt marvel of a book that navigates grief, parenthood, and the mysteries of family with unrelenting power and precision. Longlisted for The Center for Fiction 2022 First Novel Prizeįinalist for the Main Literary Award for Fiction

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

Lungfish by Meghan Gilliss