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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
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DYKETTE

Jenny Fran Davis

Fun, exciting, and maybe even at times a little bit dirty and deviant.
Jesse wants one thing for Christmas; a nude selfie of Sasha as The Grinch. Which is how we find Sasha, naked in a claw foot tub on Christmas Eve, writhing and contorting her naked body in a virtual thatch of green fur courtesy of a Grinch filter. She takes terrible photo after terrible photo all for the highest purpose: the art of seduction. So begins DYKETEE, by Jenny Fran Davis, an absurd, and darkly hilarious debut novel about a young woman who embarks on a ten-day getaway with her partner and two older queer couples.

Sasha and Jesse are professionally creative, erotically adventurous, and passionately dysfunctional 20-somethings making a life together in Brooklyn. When a pair of older, richer lesbians—prominent news host Jules Todd and her psychotherapist partner, Miranda—invites Sasha and Jesse to their country home for the holidays, they're quick to accept. Even if the trip includes a third couple—Jesse's best friend, Lou, and their cool-girl flame, Darcy—whose It- queer clout Sasha ridicules yet desperately wants.
As the late December afternoons blur together in a haze of debaucherous homecooked feasts and sweaty sauna confessionals, so too do the guests' secret and shifting motivations. When Jesse and Darcy collaborate on an ill-fated livestream performance, a complex web of infatuation and jealousy emerges, sending Sasha down a spiral of destructive rage that threatens each couple's future.

Unfolding over ten heady days, DYKETTE is an unforgettable love story at the crossroads of queer non-conformity and seductive normativity. With propulsive plotting and sexy, wickedly entertaining prose, Davis captures the vagaries of desire and the many devastating places in which we seek recognition.
In DYKETTE, Jenny Fran Davis casts her sharp, satirical eye on the millennial creative community, complete with nude selfies, sage burning exercises, therapy rants, and bespoke home goods. Readers will connect with her characters' struggles in a time when online presence determines our worth and everything—including the company we keep—is part of our personal brand. For fans of Torrey Peters's DETRANSITION, BABY and MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION by Ottessa Moshfegh; or think Meg Wolitzer, but funnier and gayer.

Jenny Fran Davis received her MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. The author of Everything Must Go, a novel for teenagers, she lives in Brooklyn.
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Book

Published 2023-05-01 by Henry Holt

Comments

"Like a tightly-rolled spliff passed round the room, you will inhale Dykette. This sexy, at times silly and wonderfully searing romp through our masquerades of identity, love, art, entertaining, and social maneuvering is a deeply observed novel of manners for today. Davis' characters slink off the page, bewitching, seducing, snuggling up in your lap to whisper stories of our tender, bungled humanity."

"Dykette turned me on and freaked me out in the best possible way! Imagine if Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf were recast with two generations of very-online queer folks. Tense, smart, and thrilling... with a charismatic pug named Vivienne to boot."

"A hilarious, astute, and captivating tour of a young femme's interior life over the course of one long weekend upstate. Dykette is a portrait of queer culture that is part satire, part ode, and full of delightful cringe. Davis's unrelenting scrutiny is a consummate pleasure; I gasped with laughter and delight on nearly every page."