Publishers Weekly
04/06/2020
Rose, the unhinged narrator of McCarthy’s grimly comic debut, is the sort of childhood friend best left behind. In high school, Rose set her sights on Leo, the boyfriend of her best friend, Lacie. After Leo “wouldn’t shut up” about Lacie while Rose was driving him to meet her in the middle of the night, Rose crashed her car and ran away, leaving Leo bloodied and unconscious. Twelve years later, Rose tracks down Lacie in New York City, where they both live. Rose is working on a novel about her youth and making ends meet as an SAT tutor, a job she lands after fudging her qualifications. Lacie is working as a graphic artist and dating Ian, a painter. Rose worms her way into sharing Lacie’s apartment, and soon, in the best horror movie tradition, is costuming herself in Lacie’s clothes, throwing herself at Ian, and generally taking possession of Lacie’s life, with predictably disastrous consequences. A classic unreliable narrator, Rose glibly explains away even her most horrific actions. McCarthy’s pitch-dark tone extends outward from her narrator to the rest of the cast of characters, all motivated by self-interest and most even less self-aware than Rose. This is a deliciously incisive tale. (June)
From the Publisher
A tale of toxic friendship at its most riveting.”—People
“An utterly taut construction, as unsettling as it is propulsive . . . McCarthy’s debut, with the acumen of the best literary fiction and the suspense of a psychological thriller, is a marvel.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is breathless and precise at once, utterly gripping, animated by the propulsive unfolding of hungers that can't be controlled or fully fathomed. It aches with insight and longing. It seduced me from the very first page with the pull of its own fierce gravity, like a darkly turning planet—its atmosphere swirling with mysterious, combustible desires; its truths merciless and bone-deep.”—Leslie Jamison, New York Times bestselling author of Make It Scream, Make It Burn
“Everyone Knows How Much I Love You is masterly, mendacious, and a total thrill ride. I was hooked instantly, laughing alongside Rose, alternately cheering and chastising her entanglements and escalations. McCarthy is an edgy writer and the prose is all at once darkly comic, sexy, and razor-sharp in its psychological insights. Not since a certain Mr. Ripley have I been so consumed in another’s covetous desires.”—Justin Torres, bestselling author of We the Animals
“A suspenseful, sexy, and gorgeously written excavation of best-friend envy. I read it with horror. And recognition. And great delight.”—Michelle Huneven, author of Blame and Off Course
“This novel gripped me from its first page. A New York story crackling with obsession; a dizzying, daring tale of lives shaken to their foundations by the tumultuous interplay of sex, death, and art, McCarthy’s debut leaves an indelible mark on the reader’s sense of the world. Unforgettable.”—Evan James, author of Cheer Up, Mr. Widdicombe
“A wickedly smart, deeply readable novel about art, love, and friendship.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Cruel Beautiful World
“A fascinating exposé of the twisted, porous lines that separate brilliance from insanity, self-awareness from misperception, and love from obsession. McCarthy meanders through the complexities of a lifelong friendship and lingers on brutally honest moments of female desire and longing, adding her voice to the glorious chorus of modern-day feminist authors.”—Wendy Walker, nationally bestselling author of The Night Before
“Compulsively readable.”—Marcy Dermansky, author of Very Nice
“Ever since I finished Everyone Knows How Much I Love You, I haven’t stopped thinking about it: how the prose pops and fizzes; how the characters reside in my mind still like ants in a terrarium; how McCarthy masterfully articulates aspects of the female experience I’ve always intuited but haven’t seen in print. It’s a stunning, evocative, unflinching debut, and I can’t wait to read whatever she writes next.”—Andrea Bartz, author of The Lost Night and The Herd
Kirkus Reviews
2020-03-29
Exploring a troubled, obsessive friendship between two young women in New York.
Whatever happened between Lacie and Rose in high school, they’re not saying—not to each other or to anyone else. They haven’t seen each other in more than a decade. Now Rose, a writer years deep into working on a novel based on their shared experience, has moved to New York and then, before either of them can catch their breath, into Lacie’s apartment. McCarthy’s debut is an utterly taut construction, as unsettling as it is propulsive. Rose narrates the novel—both in present-day scenes and in high school flashbacks—but it quickly becomes clear that she may not always make the most reliable source. Throughout, McCarthy toys with the idea of double consciousness: Rose, who scrapes together an income tutoring privileged teenagers, listens to one of her clients explain the notion this way: “It’s when you see yourself from the inside, like a normal person, but also from the outside.” As Rose digs deeper into her novel—sneaking into Lacie’s room, trying on Lacie’s clothes, hoping to gain insight for the character she’s based on Lacie—the limits of her own self-awareness become more and more clear. Meanwhile, the obsessive cast to her friendship with Lacie continues to heighten. Ironically, though, as Rose’s agent compliments her on her portrayal of the fictional Lacie, the other Lacie—the one we’re reading about—remains something of a cipher. Rose grows into one of the more complex—and, sometimes, plainly repugnant—characters of recent fiction, but Lacie, the object of her fascination, remains, for most of the novel, just that: a blank object.
McCarthy’s debut, with the acumen of the best literary fiction and the suspense of a psychological thriller, is a marvel.
