“‘Is this Deadliest Catch?’ ‘Na, but it’s kind of like it.’” It might not be the Bering Sea, but the stakes are life and death in Worry, the anxious, Internet-chatter-infused debut novel from Alexandra Tanner. When life on the couch in Brooklyn becomes as choppy as Alaskan crab fishing, sisters Jules and Poppy unravel.
The novel oscillates between venomous screaming matches and the quiet, dark register of late nights “getting stoned and fretting about the future.” The sisters, fighting for their survival in a modern maze of technological and moral extremes, are pitted against each other. Like a politically correct fly buzzing in your ear, Poppy attempts to find morality and fulfillment in New York; Jules, the narrator, drags us through toils of emptiness and misery, unable to stop staring at Mormon mommy bloggers long enough to think through a real thought. With their three-legged dog, Amy Klobuchar, Jules and Poppy attempt to form a family out of fracture, but splinter from each other and themselves.
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