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Dykette

A Novel

Jenny Fran Davis

Henry Holt and Co.

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ISBN10: 1250843138
ISBN13: 9781250843135

Hardcover

320 Pages

$26.99

CA$35.99

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Sasha and Jesse are professionally creative, erotically adventurous, and passionately dysfunctional twentysomethings making a life together in Brooklyn. When a pair of older, richer lesbians—prominent news host Jules Todd and her psychotherapist partner, Miranda—invites Sasha and Jesse to their country home for the holidays, they’re quick to accept. Even if the trip includes a third couple—Jesse’s best friend, Lou, and their cool-girl flame, Darcy—whose It-queer clout Sasha ridicules yet desperately wants.

As the late December afternoons blur together in a haze of debaucherous homecooked feasts and sweaty sauna confessions, so too do the guests’ secret and shifting motivations. When Jesse and Darcy collaborate an ill-fated livestream performance, a complex web of infatuation and jealousy emerges, sending Sasha down a spiral of destructive rage that threatens each couple’s future.

Unfolding over ten heady days, Dykette is an unforgettable love story at the crossroads of queer nonconformity and seductive normativity. With propulsive plotting and sexy, wickedly entertaining prose, Jenny Fran Davis captures the vagaries of desire and the many devastating places in which we seek recognition.

Reviews

Praise for Dykette

“Davis’s new novel reads like a taxonomy of queer theory, references, and history, while offering up wholly new words and takes on contemporary lesbian life.”—Vanity Fair

“A fascinating look at queer couples and how things like gender, sexuality, age, and even horniness can affect everything about a relationship.”Cosmopolitan

“There’s a whiff of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf in this wry, horny battle-of-the-lovers, and also the sensation of piecing together some gossip on Instagram. Dykette makes a strong case for mixing goofiness with sexiness in contemporary fiction."—Bustle

Dykette takes on desire, debauchery, and destruction through a distinctly queer—and propulsively entertaining—lens.”The Millions

“[A] sexy debut novel.”—Nylon

“Through Sasha, Davis constructs a field guide to queer dynamics, making sharp observations about generational divides, the butch/femme dynamic, and what it means to perform your gender or sexuality (as exemplified by an explosive plot about performance art). You won’t soon forget Sasha, nor any of the other larger-than-life Brooklynites in her cohort.”—Esquire

“Part romance, part steam, this may be the beach read you want this Pride Month.”—Eagle Times

Dykette is a riveting and often darkly funny novel that accurately examines New York queer culture with an insider's authenticity.”—BUST Magazine

“A bold and refreshingly zany novel of gay millennial life in New York, Dykette is sharp and unsparing as a play piercing needle. Bound to set countless group chats afire, this book signals Jenny Fran Davis as a writer to watch.”Sarah Thankam Mathews, author of the National Book Award finalist All This Could Be Different

“A hilarious, astute, and captivating tour of a young femme’s interior life over the course of one long weekend upstate. Dykette is a portrait of a certain corner of queer culture that is part satire, part ode, and full of delightful cringe. Davis’s unrelenting scrutiny is a consummate pleasure; I gasped with laughter and delight on nearly every page.”Melissa Febos, author of Girlhood

Dykette stared directly into my soul, pinned me against a wall, and made me look inward, consider the sharp and ugly parts of myself. A novel that can accomplish that complexity while also being wickedly funny, achingly sensitive, readable as hell—simply put, Jenny Fran Davis is a talent.”—Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl

Dykette is hilarious, smart, and has (in my humble opinion) the best opening scene of any novel I've read in ages. I don't think I'll ever look at the Grinch—or bathtubs—in the same way again.”—Grant Ginder, author of Let's Not Do That Again

Dykette turned me on and freaked me out in the best possible way! Imagine if Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? were recast with two generations of very-online queer folks. Tense, smart, and thrilling . . . with a charismatic pug named Vivienne to boot.”CJ Hauser, author of The Crane Wife

“Jenny Fran Davis is a real troublemaker, and Dykette is my favorite kind of troublesexy, messy, full of gossip and glitter, and cunning, and thus of course profoundly revealing about our strange times. Text me when you finish!”Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

“A blast of defiant frivolity, Dykette is so perceptive it hurts and as fun and decadent as wearing Gaultier in a bubble bath.”Beth Morgan, author of A Touch of Jen

“Like a tightly rolled spliff passed around the room, you will inhale Dykette. This sexy, at times silly, and wonderfully searing romp through our masquerades of identity, love, art, entertaining, and social maneuvering is a deeply observed novel of manners for today. Davis’s characters slink off the page, bewitching, seducing, snuggling up in your lap to whisper stories of our tender, bungled humanity.”Samantha Hunt, author of The Unwritten Book

Dykette is an invigorating and hilarious examination of queer identity and intimacy. It’s a novel about being trapped—trapped inside your own head, trapped inside relationships, and trapped inside a chilly upstate New York vacation home. The only thing more horrifying than perceiving one’s self is being perceived by others, and Jenny Fran Davis explores both actions with an audacious and tender wit.”—Bobby Finger, author of The Old Place

“In her first novel for adults, Davis explores what happens when people are isolated physically while remaining very much online . . . A view of contemporary queer life presented by a spectacularly unreliable narrator.”—Kirkus Reviews

“An engagingly self-aware and entertainingly claustrophobic story of performance and realness.”—Booklist

“Davis delights in upending concepts of gender and sexuality . . . It's worth adding to the weekend bag.”—Publishers Weekly

BOOK EXCERPTS

Read an Excerpt

You’re a Mean One, Mrs. Grinch

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24



The only thing Jesse wanted for Christmas was a nude photo of Sasha as the Grinch, so Sasha was writhing in a virtual thatch of green fur generated by her iPhone,...

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