The Most
Published on 12. June 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
144 pages
978-1-80499-416-0 (ISBN)
Description
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, for fans of Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen and Taffy Brodesser-Akner
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2024
A Barnes & Noble BEST BOOK of 2024
'Clever, moving and unexpected. A brilliantly deft and subtle story.' - Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing
---
A warm Sunday in November 1957. As Sputnik 2 orbits the earth, 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 fulfils the role, playing golf with the partners, drinking in the bar, chasing the women. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion, with a key shot up her sleeve called 'The Most', is now a mother and homemaker.
Somehow these two, who have been together since college, have fallen into the roles expected of them - the prescribed suburban dream they have been sold as something to covet, something that will fulfil their lives. But on this unseasonably warm, early November Sunday, Kathleen wakes up and decides that she will not be accompanying her family to church.
No, she feels like a swim.
She unearths her old, red bathing suit and descends into the apartment complex pool no other resident uses. And she doesn't want to come out...
___
Praise for Jessica Anthony's ENTER THE AARDVARK
'A truly fresh piece of art' Percival Everett
'Fresh, witty, smart' Kate Atkinson
'Highly inventive' Joshua Ferris
'A writer possessed of mind-bending talents' Heidi Julavits
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2024
A Barnes & Noble BEST BOOK of 2024
'Clever, moving and unexpected. A brilliantly deft and subtle story.' - Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing
---
A warm Sunday in November 1957. As Sputnik 2 orbits the earth, 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 fulfils the role, playing golf with the partners, drinking in the bar, chasing the women. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion, with a key shot up her sleeve called 'The Most', is now a mother and homemaker.
Somehow these two, who have been together since college, have fallen into the roles expected of them - the prescribed suburban dream they have been sold as something to covet, something that will fulfil their lives. But on this unseasonably warm, early November Sunday, Kathleen wakes up and decides that she will not be accompanying her family to church.
No, she feels like a swim.
She unearths her old, red bathing suit and descends into the apartment complex pool no other resident uses. And she doesn't want to come out...
___
Praise for Jessica Anthony's ENTER THE AARDVARK
'A truly fresh piece of art' Percival Everett
'Fresh, witty, smart' Kate Atkinson
'Highly inventive' Joshua Ferris
'A writer possessed of mind-bending talents' Heidi Julavits
Reviews / Votes
Clever, moving and unexpected. A brilliantly deft and subtle story. * Emma Healey, author of Elizabeth is Missing * Delivers on page-turning interior secrets * Observer * I inhaled this story while sitting on a Corsican beach...this is a taut, perfect book - a smart takedown of 1950s social mores and a portrait of a very imperfect but very human marriage. * Stylist * I inhaled this story while sitting on a Corsican beach . . . this is a taut, perfect book - a smart takedown of 1950s social mores and a portrait of a very imperfect but very human marriage. * Stylist * In just 144 pages Anthony manages to convey the stifling atmosphere for women in the 1950s through the simple story of a housewife who chooses not to go to church that day and instead spends all her time in an unloved swimming pool, which she refuses to leave. * Cosmopolitan, 'Best Novella of 2024' * Sensational ... Readers won't want to put this down. * Publishers Weekly * A fascinating, elegant read where not a single word is wasted * My Weekly * With this seemingly small act of female rebellion, novelist Jessica Anthony leads us into the secret upheaval of marriage, good-girl American society, and a silenced female fury and ambition. Get ready, readers. The Most is an exquisitely written, heady rush of story. * OPRAH DAILY * Jessica Anthony's The Most is a brilliant and startling domestic fable of longing... The Most is a novel of ruthless beauty. I read it in one perfect sitting. * Isle McElroy, author of People Collide * One of the most inventive writers working today * Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Transworld Publishers Ltd
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 196 mm
Width: 126 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
108 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80499-416-0 (9781804994160)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2024
Transworld Digital
€8.99
Available for download
Person
Jessica Anthony is the author of The Convalescent, Chopsticks, and Enter the Aardvark. Anthony's novels have been published in over a dozen countries, and are featured in Time, Newsweek, Esquire, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times Book Review as an Editors' Choice. She is the recipient of the Creative Capital Award in Literature and has been awarded fellowships from the Bogliasco Foundation and the Bridge Guard Foundation. She lives in Maine, USA.