TRIP

The brilliant first novel from an acclaimed short story author is clever, funny, original, and profound. Cuskian at times, the novel also draws comparison to Katie Kitamura, Ottessa Moshfegh and Ling Ma. follows the dual narrative of a mother, estranged from her husband, co-parenting their son, Enrico, a child on the autism spectrum.

The novel follows the dual narrative of a mother, estranged from her husband, co-parenting their son, Enrico, a child on the autism spectrum. The couple disagree on the best ways to care for him. Sandra insists she must travel to Nepal on business, which, as we know from the first line, is not going to go well. Enrico, newly installed in a treatment center, escapes and finds himself on the road with a "friendly" stranger. The two are soon figuratively and literally lost at sea. Sandra, in the bardo so to speak, tries desperately to relay a message through a group of distracted mediums and death scholars attending a conference, knowing that her time in this space is limited. It's both hilarious and gut wrenching. In other hands this might fall into mawkishness, but Barradole is clever, funny, original, and profound. Cuskian at times, the novel also draws comparison to Katie Kitamura, Ottessa Moshfegh and Ling Ma. Amie Barrodale is the author of the story collection You Are Having a Good Time. She received the Plimpton Prize in 2012. A teaching-writing fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she received the Maytag Fellowship from them in 2014. Her writing has appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review and other publications. She is a former staff writer for The Onion and a former Fiction Editor at Vice.