Wasp Eater - Couverture rigide

"It’s tempting to call this a small gem, except there’s nothing small about a work that glows with such tenderness." Kirkus Reviews, Starred

"Remarkable....Original...quietly intense writing carefully containing more emotion than many louder novels have to show.” Library Journal Starred

“A beautifully understated, delicately crafted debut.” Booklist, ALA

"Poetic but never precious...elegant prose." --Elisabeth Egan TimeOut New York

"A deeply moving first novel...." --Anne Stephenson USA Today

"A dark horse of a slim first novel. . .I was...taken by the nimble way it evokes a sense of missed opportunities experienced by limited characters who don't have the language or temperament to analyze what's gone wrong." --Maureen Corrigan NPR - "Fresh Air"

"The simplicity and clarity of Lychack's writing are effective in their precise portrayal of a child's mind. . .vivid. . .well-executed." --Jeremy Jackson People Magazine

"This spare, meticulous novel opens out like a poem, its deceptively casual images bearing a universe of weight." --Polly Shulman The New York Times Book Review

"Seductive . . . a graceful and all-too-brief exploration of a family in crisis." --Mark Rozzo Los Angeles Times

The first novel by an author already featured in The Best American Short Stories and National Public Radio's This American Life, The Wasp Eater charts the raw emotional undercurrents of a family in crisis. Set in an old New England mill town in 1979, this magnetic novel is the story of a ten-year-old boy's dream of reuniting his estranged parents, a haunting tale of characters caught in the crossfire of their desires and fears.
After learning of her husband's infidelity, Daniel's mother throws the man and his things out of the house. But Robert Cussler is a stubborn and impulsive man, and he returns almost nightly to his son's window. Through the moonlit screen, father and son secretly plot ways to make the family whole again. Daniel's chosen plan goes horribly wrong, and he finds himself accompanying his father on one final betrayal of everything the boy knows and loves.
At once dreamlike and clear-eyed, The Wasp Eater poignantly uncovers the depths of emotion that echo through regular lives, and the surprising human capacity for resilience after heartbreak.