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THE RED CAR

Marcy Dermansky

A wildly imaginative, rebellious, and tender tale of independence from the critically acclaimed author, a razor-sharp exploration of a women’s search for self-realization.
When Leah Kaplan's former boss and mentor, Judy, dies in a car accident she leaves Leah her most prized possession—a flashy red sports car—the shock forces Leah to reevaluate her whole life.

Leah is living in Queens with Hans, a husband she doesn’t love and a list of unfulfilled ambitions. Returning to San Francisco to attend Judy's funeral and claim the mysterious car, Leah revisits past lives and loves in fourteen sprawling days colored by sex and sorrow and unexpected delight. Through the voice of Judy, who advises from afar, the surreal nature of grief is made hauntingly evident as Leah is led toward a new sense of freedom.

Surreal, sexy, and transgressive, The Red Car is influenced by the writing of Haruki Marukami, and will also bring the same comparisons Marcy’s work always has—Mary Gaitskill is the most common example. Flawed, seemingly aimless, yet real and relatable, Leah is the kind of heroine that made Marcy’s Bad Marie an instant cult favorite.

With the publication of the novels Twins (William Morrow, 2005) and Bad Marie (HarperPerennial, 2010), Marcy Dermansky has built herself a devoted audience of readers who appreciate her honesty, her immediacy, and the originality of her writing about women. She is the winner of the Andre Dubus Novella Award and Story Magazine’s Carson McCullers Prize.
Available products
Book

Published 2016-10-01 by Liveright / Norton

Book

Published 2016-10-01 by Liveright / Norton

Comments

A new book by the inimitable Marcy Dermansky is worth cheering for. The Red Car is droll, unflinching, and mysterious, a feat of efficient storytelling. I could not put it down. This novel mesmerized me.

Combining Haruki Murakami–inspired fabulism with the sexual realism of Jennifer Weiner, The Red Car is one of the most original novels published this year. Read more...

A Novel of Furious Action and Furious Ideas. (...) There is, now, a literary term for a book you can’t stop reading that makes you stop to think. It is “The Red Car.” Read more...

I've been waiting and waiting for a new book from Marcy Dermansky and finally that new book is here. The Red Car is taut and smart and strange and sweet and perfect. I want to eat this book or sew it to my skin or something.

There are few writers who can do what Marcy Dermansky does so effortlessly in The Red Car, the way she pushes this story in such surprising and thrilling directions, never losing control, taking your breath away line by beautiful line. Dermansky writes with such unnerving clarity about grief, not just for the loss of a loved one, but for our own unexpected lives. A strange, unflinching, utterly amazing novel.

THE RED CAR is selected as one of the 12 best new Books by the People Magazine: "...A dry, delightful fairy tale for grown-ups."

Marcy Dermansky’s The Red Car is a wonder. Moving, mysterious and filled with dark, sly humor, it rustles under your skin and stays there. By the time I reached its shimmering final pages, I wanted to go right back to the beginning and start again.

It’s difficult to classify Dermansky’s work. The elements of the plot always suggest a thriller, but – as in her celebrated last outing Bad Marie – Dermansky wants to unsettle rather than horrify you. In The Red Car, a young woman in Queens receives the titular vehicle as her inheritance from an old boss and has to set off on a trip to San Francisco to recover it. Read more...

You should read The Red Car because you will love it. And then you might want to eat it. . . . perfectly delectable. Read more...

“In vivid, dreamlike prose, Dermansky (Bad Marie, 2010, etc.) shows us how easy it is to feel like a ghost in your own life—and how difficult it can be to fight your way back to your body. It's no accident that Dermansky's nods to literature and pop culture serve as delightful signposts of surrealism—there are strains of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Haruki Murakami novels, HBO's Six Feet Under and psychedelic drug use. . . . Dermansky delivers a captivating novel about the pursuit of joy that combines dreamlike logic with dark humor, wry observation, and gritty feminism.”

Don’t be fooled by The Red Car’s brevity: it packs a serious punch. Dermansky’s vision is sharp and clear, pushing her beautifully realized protagonist, Leah, into the rapids on a journey of self-discovery. And we’re right there at her side, breathless, as she shakes herself awake. A tremendously moving story that feels true and important.

Dry, entertaining and crookedly insightful. . . . [The Red Car] is on one level, a fairy tale complete with fairy godmother, and on another, a whispered goad to the reader: Live the life you really want. Read more...

Book selected as one of “11 Must-Read Books for This October”: We really do love when novels center around people taking it on the road. And this particular work involves a very twisty, winding journey, one which has a specifically mordant sense of humor and a subversive look at what it sometimes takes to find yourself, even when you weren’t quite sure you were supposed to be looking. Read more...

Buzzfeed feature profile of the author: "[Marcy Dermansky] has been writing books about women behaving badly before it was a trend, and now, with the release of her incandescent third novel The Red Car (Liveright, Oct. 11), she’s poised to ride the current wave of fascination with these anti-heroines..." Read more...

“Cosmo Reads” selection: “When her boss and mentor suddenly dies in a car accident, Leah inherits the vehicle at the center of the destruction. Behind the wheel, Leah discovers the woman she’d lost—herself.”