A New York Times Bestseller

Kristen Arnett's debut novel is a darkly funny, heart-wrenching, and eccentric look at loss and love.

'Messed-up families, scandalous love affairs, art, life, death and the great state of Florida in one delicious, darkly funny package. Kristen Arnett is wickedly talented and a wholly original voice' Jami Attenberg

'Arnett possesses all the bravery her characters dream of. There's none of the shyness and self-consciousness of so much American fiction that masks itself as austerity. She writes comic set pieces to make you laugh, sex scenes to turn you on. The action flips from the past to the present, swimming through first love and first grief on a slick of red Kool-Aid and vodka, suntan oil and fruity lip gloss, easy and unforced. This book is my song of the summer' New York Times

'Hilarious, deeply morbid and full of heart' BuzzFeed

'The writing is subtle and meditative, with the tactile weight of dense fur' The New Yorker

'I don't think I've ever read a novel like it . . . Kristen Arnett is the queen of the Florida no one has ever told you about' Alexander Chee

'A gorgeously twisted story' Vanity Fair

'Mostly Dead Things is very Florida, very gay, and very good... a rock-solid family novel, brightened by its eccentric milieu' Entertainment Weekly

'It's darkly funny, both macabre and irreverent, and its narrator is so real that every time I stopped reading the book, I felt a tiny pull at the back of my mind, as if I'd left a good friend in the middle of a conversation' NPR