Take What You Need
Idra Novey
'Novey fully renders the inarticulable parts of artmaking – the antagonism of an artist's material, the pleasure in that difficulty, the way it troubles tidy ideas of legacy.' - Raven Leilani
Take What You Need traces the parallel lives of Jean and her beloved but estranged stepdaughter, Leah, who's sought a clean break from her rural childhood. In Leah's urban life with her young family, she's revealed little about Jean, how much she misses her stepmother's hard-won insights and joyful lack of inhibition.
But with Jean's death, Leah must return to sort through what's been left be-hind. What Leah discovers is staggering: Jean has filled her ramshackle house with giant sculptures she's welded from scraps of the area's industrial history.
Set in the Allegheny Mountains of Appalachia, Take What You Need explores the continuing mystery of the people we love most, zeroing in on the joys and difficulties of family with great verve and humour.
Publication: October 2023
ISBN: 9781914198649
Imprint: Faber
Format: Paperback
