With Teeth, Kristen Arnett

Description

With Teeth
by Kristen Arnett
Paperback | May 31, 2022

What happens when love, resentment, fear, and devotion all live under the same roof?

In With Teeth, Kristen Arnett delivers a sharp, unsettling, and darkly funny portrait of queer family life under strain. Sammie Lucas is a work-from-home mom in Florida who is quietly terrified of her son, Samson—a brooding, resistant child who seems determined to push her away at every turn. As Sammie tries to live up to her own ideal of motherhood, she grows increasingly resentful of her wife, Monika, whose confidence and emotional distance leave Sammie feeling isolated and unsupported.

As Samson grows from a feral toddler into a hostile teenager, Sammie’s inner life unravels. The routines of caregiving—driving, cleaning, cooking, coaxing—become acts of quiet desperation, and the carefully constructed image of a happy queer family begins to crack. When Samson’s hostility escalates into physical aggression, Sammie is forced to confront her own role in the family’s dysfunction and the uncomfortable truth that love does not guarantee safety, harmony, or redemption.

Blending the warmth, wit, and off-kilter humor of Arnett’s breakout novel Mostly Dead Things with a more abrasive emotional edge, With Teeth is an unflinching exploration of marriage, parenthood, and the limits of empathy. Unabashedly queer, brazenly funny, and deeply uncomfortable, it asks what we owe the people we love—and what happens when those bonds begin to bite back.

This title is a remainder, offered at half the original cover price. Remainder copies are new and unread, but may show minor shelf wear.