Still Life by Katherine Packert Burke


ISBN
9781324076360
Published
Binding
Hardcover
Pages
272

Everything in Edith's life is approaching disaster. Her writing career is stagnant. Her love life is a mess. Her ex, Tessa, is marrying a man. Her teeth are rotting in her skull. And her best friend, Val, is dead.
Still Life volleys between the present and recent past, chronicling the lives of three women-one cis, two trans, all forever entwined. Edith was a bumbling "boy" pre-transition, in love with Tessa, enamored by Val, and drowning in Boston. She and Tessa called each other Joni and Joan, an homage to the musical backdrop of their fledgling adulthood. When Edith decides to leave behind the East Coast for graduate school, she begins a yearslong journey away from the person she loves most and toward a hazy new understanding of who she will become.
In the present, Edith visits Boston feeling like a failure of a writer, a failure of a girl, and wracked with guilt over Val's death. Val, the intrepid wanderer, had drifted in and out of Edith's life, arriving in Texas with estrogen pills and wisdom from a life on the road. A sometimes lover, sometimes trans mentor, Val was everything Tessa wasn't and everything Edith needed. Home alone in Texas, she is left loveless and exhausted as the state slowly chips away at trans rights. Was Val's fatal car crash Edith's fault? Would she have stayed put if Edith had loved her better?
Katherine Packert Burke's debut novel unfolds like a rusty pocketknife, jagged and lacerating. Infused with pop culture, cigarettes, and Sondheim, Still Life traces the lives of three friends, authentic and evolving, loving and cruel, here and gone, to craft a tableau of modern womanhood.
Christmas Catalogue 2024 x BookFrenzy
40.76
RRP: $47.95
15% off RRP


This product is unable to be ordered online. Please check in-store availability.
Instore Price: $47.95
Enter your Postcode or Suburb to view availability and delivery times.

You might also like

The Golden Road
39.99
33.99
15% Off
The Soul
49.99
39.99
20% Off
Unruly
26.99
22.94
15% Off
Emperor of Rome
27.99
23.79
15% Off
Jerusalem
26.99
22.94
15% Off
Fake History
24.99
21.24
15% Off
Russia
26.99
22.94
15% Off
The World
29.99
25.49
15% Off
Mutiny On The Bounty
Peter FitzSimons
36.99
31.44
15% Off
Hell Ship
24.99
21.24
15% Off

RRP refers to the Recommended Retail Price as set out by the original publisher at time of release.
The RRP set by overseas publishers may vary to those set by local publishers due to exchange rates and shipping costs.
Due to our competitive pricing, we may have not sold all products at their original RRP.