Wreck and Order
A Novel
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3.9 • 7 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Nominated for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize
Nominated for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize
A boldly candid, raw portrait of a young woman's search for meaning and purpose in an indifferent world
Purposefully aimless, self-destructive, and impulsively in and out of love, Elsie is a young woman who feels lost. She's in a tumultuous relationship, is stuck in a dead-end job, and has a relentless, sharp intelligence that’s at odds with her many bad decisions. When her initial attempts to improve her life go awry, Elsie decides that a dramatic change is the only solution.
While traveling through Paris and Sri Lanka, Elsie meets people who challenge and provoke her towards the change she is seeking, but ultimately she must still come face-to-face with herself.
Whole-hearted, fiercely honest and inexorably human, Wreck and Order is a stirring debut novel that, in mirroring one young woman's dizzying quest for answers, illuminates the important questions that drive us all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Tennant-Moore's sharp, confident debut novel, Elsie, a bright young woman in her 20s who is equal parts self-assured and self-destructive, isn't afraid to name her feelings: "lust, rage, lust, rage." But she's at a loss for how to reconcile herself with the injustice in the world and "just be a decent person." Encouraged by her indulgent father, who, thanks to inheriting a small fortune, floats her money when she needs it, she skips college for a life made on her own terms, travelling around the world: to Paris where she's "overcome by own worthlessness" at not being able to communicate and sublimates it by attempting to translate an out-of-print book about stray cats; to California, where she can't escape a destructive attraction to Jared, a small-time drug dealer; and New York City, where her career ambitions give way to a relationship with Brian, who is stable and successful but ultimately square (not to mention a selfish lover) and quick to break off their short-lived engagement. Seeking a change in her life, Elsie backpacks around Sri Lanka, but Tennant-Moore is far too sophisticated and nuanced a writer to allow Elsie to be miraculously healed by the mysterious East. Instead, Tennant-Moore provides no easy answers, deftly illustrating Elsie's inner monologue as she tries to face up to herself and the people around her. The book has a broad appeal, and many young women will keep it stacked on their bookshelf next to Chris Kraus's I Love Dick and cart it with them like a talisman through the various bad apartments of their 20s.
