Modern Fiction Lilliput Bookclub: Whistler by Ann Patchett

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NOTE: Due to high demand, the book is on order. ETA first week of May.

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About the book:

"Everyone is going to be talking about this book."
--Bella Mackie, bestselling author of How to K*ll Your Family
" Yesteryear is unapologetically political fiction in the tradition of The Stepford Wives or The Handmaid's Tale. Burke takes us right into the belly of the beast. Enraging, thrilling--often grimly funny in the way of good satire, but still intensely humane. Easily one of my favorites of the year."
--Hannah Deitch, author of Killer Potential

"I could barely put this book down. Such a clever excavation of motherhood and faith and online fame. Highly original and utterly addictive."
--Louise O'Neill, author of Asking for It
"Intelligent, incisive and insanely readable, Yesteryear had me obsessed from page one. Everyone will be talking about it!"
--Jennie Godfrey, author of The List of Suspicious Things
"Insanely good, totally fresh, sharp and spiky. It reminded me of Gone Girl, with its unreliable, intensely unlikeable narrator, amazing twist and needlepoint observations. It's going to be seismic."
--Stacey Halls, author of The Familiars
"Deliciously topical as tradwives and pronatalism dominate the headlines, with a chef's kiss of a twist. One to gobble in one."
--Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We're Doing it Right?

"Unpredictable, original and beautifully written. I couldn't guess the genius ending --my mind was blown!"
--Adele Parks, author of Just Between Us

"A propulsive page turner, impossible to put down. . . . Wickedly entertaining. . . . As it sends up both MAGA and online culture, this deliciously funny, topical, and fiercely intelligent debut also probes deeper questions about authenticity, ambition, kindness, celebrity, consumerism, and what it means to be a woman in America today. . . . In Natalie, Burke has given us an absolutely riveting character. . . . A remarkable debut--both a book for the moment and one that will endure."
--Kirkus (starred review)
"Burke captures much of the zeitgeist in Natalie's increasingly delusional, overall disturbing state of mind in both time periods--and in other characters' collisions with it. The seductive topic, unreliable narrator, and surprisingly creepy vibes are sure to draw readers in and keep them guessing."
--Booklist (starred review)
"Readers won't be able to look away. . . . Captivating."
-Library Journal

"Nightmarish, shocking, brilliant." --Stylist

Brief Description:
A social media celebrity, a wife and mother who sells her fantasy pioneer lifestyle of sourdough and farm-fresh eggs to her millions of followers, suddenly wakes up cold, dirty, and hungry in the year 1805 and must uncover the nature - hoax, reality show, test from God - of her terrifying new existence in this sensational debut novel. "My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive." Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle. Her charming farmhouse is rustic, her husband a handsome cowboy, her six children each more delightful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers behind the scenes, her kitchen hiding industrial-grade fridges and ovens, her husband the Republican equivalent of a Kennedy? What Natalie's followers - all 8 million of them - don't know won't hurt them. And The Angry Women? The privileged, Ivy League, coastal elite haters who call her an antifeminist iconoclast? They're sick with jealousy. Because Natalie isn't simply living the good life, she's living the ideal - and just so happens to be building an empire from it. Until one morning she wakes up in a life that isn't hers. Her home, her husband, her children - they're all familiar, but something's off. Her kitchen is warmed by a sputtering fire rather than electricity, her children are dirty and strange, and her soft-handed husband is suddenly a competent farmer. Just yesterday Natalie was curating photos of homemade jam for her Instagram, and now she's expected to haul firewood and handwash clothes until her fingers bleed. Has she become the unwitting star of a brutal reality show? Could it really be time travel? Is she being tested by God? By Satan? When Natalie suffers a brutal injury in the woods, she realizes two things: This is not her beautiful life, and she must escape by any means possible. A gripping, electrifying novel that is as darkly funny as it is frightening, Yesteryear is a gimlet-eyed look at tradition, fame, faith, and the grand performance of womanhood.

BYOB (there is a liquor store next door)

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