The Most
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Longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction. One of Time's 100 Must-Read Books of 2024. One of the Washington Post's Best Books of 2024.
From "one of our most thrilling and singular innovators on the page" (Laura Van Den Berg), a tightly wound, consuming tale about a 1950s American housewife who goes for a swim in her apartment complex's swimming pool one morning...and won't come out.
It's November 3, 1957. As Sputnik 2 launches into space, carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, a couple begin their day. Virgil Beckett, an insurance salesman, isn't particularly happy in his job but he fulfills the role. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion with a key shot up her sleeve, is now a mother and homemaker. On this unseasonably warm Sunday, Kathleen decides not to join her family at church. Instead, she unearths her old, red bathing suit and descends into the deserted swimming pool of their apartment complex in Newark, Delaware. And then she won't come out.
A riveting, single-sitting read set over the course of eight hours, The Most masterly breaches the shimmering surface of a seemingly idyllic mid-century marriage, immersing us in the unspoken truth beneath. ]]>
About this Author
Jessica Anthony is the author of three books of fiction, most recently the novel Enter the Aardvark, a finalist for the New England Book Award in Fiction. A recipient of the Creative Capital Award in Literature, Anthony wrote The Most while guarding the Mária Valéria Bridge in Stúrovo, Slovakia. She lives in Portland, Maine.]]>
Reviews
THE WASHINGTON POST]]>
The Most blindsided me with its power....This superb short novel, about a marriage at its breakpoint, deserves to become a classic....Anthony has served an ace."--HELLER MCALPIN, NPR.ORG]]>
PARADE]]>
The Most is exquisitely written, heady rush of story that you can--and probably will--finish in a few hours, before your sunscreen needs reapplying."--OPRAH DAILY]]>
BOSTON GLOBE]]>
Revolutionary Road, but with an admirable economy of words and a creative omniscient narrator."--CHICAGO REVIEW OF BOOKS]]>
SUZANNA HERMANS from Oblong Books, WAMC "The Roundtable"]]>
KIRKUS, Starred Review]]>
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, Starred Review]]>
ALISSA NUTTING, author of MADE FOR LOVE and TAMPA]]>
Enter the Aardvark Jessica Anthony proved herself to be one of the most inventive writers working today. That book should have prepared me for her ingenious new novella, The Most, but somehow it didn't. Trust me, though. The Most is a must."--RICHARD RUSSO, author of EMPIRE FALLS and the NORTH BATH Trilogy]]>
"The Most charges the air like a thunderclap when a married couple reckons with their past and the masks they hide behind. You will race to find out who they are and who they might become. Jessica Anthony's riveting novel is stellar. She has quickly become one of my favorite writers."--TOMAS Q. MORIN, author of MACHETE]]>
The Most is a brilliant and startling domestic fable of longing. The novel captures a haunting unrest at the core of midcentury American life, treating its aimlessly striving characters with a stern caress of grace. The Most is a novel of ruthless beauty. I read it in one perfect sitting."--ISLE MCELROY, author of PEOPLE COLLIDE]]>
The Most achieves the impossible: it says something new about marriage. In this thrilling novel, Anthony's genius for structural and chronological invention is grounded in sensory richness and the most vividly idiosyncratic characters I've encountered in a while. This is a 21st century literary classic waiting to happen."--KATE CHRISTENSEN, author of THE GREAT MAN]]>
TIME, 100 Must-Read Books of 2024]]>
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